Recently, we have introduced the holistic method into health care of workers and amied at improvement of Quality of Life (QOL). It has been made clear that primary prevention of diseases needs lifestyle appraisal. Therefore, we studied the daily working hours and the effects of long working hours on lifestyles, perceived stress and working-life satisfaction, which we used as a subjective index of Quality of Life (QOL), based on data obtained from a survey of 1, 026 department chiefs and 2, 902 section chiefs in 110 large companies in Japan in 1990.
The results are summarized as follows.
(1) The percentage of those working 10 hours per day was 41.6% for department chiefs and 40.4% for section chiefs, and for 11 or more working hours it was 24.1% in department chiefs and 30.9% in section chiefs. The younger both department and section chiefs, the longer their working hours.
(2) Both department and section chiefs had a significant relationship between long working hours and poor sleeping habits, poor physical exercise, feeling busy, irregularity of daily life and irregularity of daily meals. The department chiefs had a significant relationship between long working hours and unbalanced nutrition or no hobbies. The section chiefs had a significant relationship between long working hours and drinking many cups of tea or coffee, taking a lot of salt or ill physical condition during the past six months.
(3) The department chiefs who worked 10 or more hours perceived 3.01 times as much mental stress as those who worked 9 or less hours. The section chiefs who worked 10 or more hours perceived 2.47 times as much mental stress as those who worked 9 or less hours.
(4) The department chiefs who worked 10 or more hours perceived 1.64 times as low working-life satisfaction as those who worked 9 or less hours. There was no significant relationship between long working hours and low working-life satisfaction.
These results made it clear that long working hours had many effects on lifestyles, perceived stress and working-life satisfaction among both department and section chiefs.