Affiliations: Department of Hygiene and Public Health, Nippon
Medical School, Tokyo, Japan
Note: [] Address for correspondence: Tomoyuki Kawada, Department of
Hygiene and Public Health, Nippon Medical School, 1-1-5 Sendagi, Bunkyo-Ku,
Tokyo 113-8602, Japan. E-mail: kawada@nms.ac.jp
Abstract: Objective: A depressive state and feelings of unhappiness in daily
life are regarded as indispensable factors for the diagnosis of major
depression. These factors are also speculated to contribute to subsequent
psychological wellbeing. Methods and Participants: A total of 3190 men,
aged 33 to 59 years, from a workplace in Japan participated in this one-year
prospective study conducted from 2007 to 2008; 3141 men completed both
evaluations (98.5%). The prevalences of depressive states and feelings of
unhappiness were evaluated using a questionnaire. After one year, psychological
wellbeing was evaluated using the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ) 12-item
version. Analysis of variance and a logistic regression analysis were used for
the analysis. Results: The prevalence of no depressive feelings and no
feelings of unhappiness among the workers were 73.5% among men in their 30s,
76.9% among men in their 40s, and 83.2% among men in their 50s. The mean
GHQ score among participants with or without of depressive feelings and
feelings of unhappiness was significantly higher than that among participants
who had no depressive feelings and no feelings of unhappiness (control group).
In contrast, the mean GHQ score among the participants in their 50s who had
only depressive feelings did not differ from that in the control group of
participants in their 50s according to a multivariate analysis. Conclusions: Compared with depressive feelings, feelings of unhappiness were a
stronger contributing factor to psychological wellbeing as measured using the
GHQ questionnaire, especially among subjects in their 50s, in a one-year
follow-up study.
Keywords: Depressive state, unpleasant feelings, general health questionnaire, psychological wellbeing, prospective study, workplace
