Association between Long Working Hours and Job Stress and Depression among Employees from a State Grid Company

Objective: This study was to understand the current situation of long working hours and identify the association of long working hours and job stress and depression among workers from one district company of state grid. Methods: The project was done with the cross-sectional survey. All questionnaires were completed by self-administered with informed consent. Employees' weekly working hours was reported by themselves; Using the PHQ-9 scale to assess depression, the JDC Model to evaluate job stress, and SPSS software to analyze data, the single factor chi-square test and multivariate Logistic analysis were performed to identify the association between long working hours and job stress, depression. Results: there were 35.3 percent employees with over 44 hours a week. The association between increasing weekly working hours and job stress and depression was statistically significant. Compared to the reference group (≤44 h) , for those who worked more than 44 hours per week, the odds ratio of job stress was 2.02 (95%CI=1.27-3.23) times increased, and the odds ratio of depression was 1.60 (95%CI=1.01-2.55) times increased, especially for those (≥60 h) , the odds ratio was 3.69 (95%CI=1.45-9.41) and 2.76 (95%CI=1.09-7.03) respectively. Conclusion: Long working hours can significantly increase the risk of job stress and depression among workers. When their weekly working hours exceeds 60, long working hours will be the independent risk factor for both job stress and depression.