Previously submitted to: JMIR Public Health and Surveillance (no longer under consideration since Nov 11, 2021)
Date Submitted: Apr 22, 2021
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
Changes in compliance to personal preventive measures and mental health status among Chinese factory workers during the COVID-19 pandemic: observational prospective cohort study
ABSTRACT
Background:
Factory workers who resumed work during the pandemic is a sub-population of higher risk of COVID-19 infection than that of the general population. Maintaining good compliance with personal preventive measures during the pandemic plays an important role in achieving the balance between COVID-19 control and work resumption.
Objective:
This observational prospective cohort study investigated the changes in compliance to personal preventive measures (i.e., facemask wearing, hand hygiene, household disinfection, avoiding social/meal gathering and avoiding crowed places), depressive symptoms and sleep quality among factory workers who resumed work within a 3-month follow-up period.
Methods:
Inclusion criteria for this cohort study were the following: 1) full-time employees aged ≥18 years who had resumed work, and 2) willing to leave contacts (mobile or social media account) to complete the follow-up survey. A stratified two-stage cluster sampling design was used. We randomly selected 12 factories in Shenzhen. And all eligible employees in these factories were invite to complete two web-based surveys three months apart. A total of 1311 Chinese adult factory workers completed the baseline survey in March 2020, and 663 (50.6%) completed the follow-up survey three months later.
Results:
Significant decline was observed in consistent facemask wearing in workplace (from 98.0% at baseline to 90.3% at Month 3, P<.001) and in other public spaces (from 97.1% at baseline to 94.4% at Month 3, P=.02), sanitizing hands (from 70.9% at baseline to 48.0% at Month 3, P<.001), household disinfection (from 47.7% at baseline to 37.9% at Month 3, P<.001) and moderate-to-severe depression (from 6.0% at baseline to 0.6% at Month 3, P<.001) over the follow-up period. Significant improvement in avoiding crowed places (from 69.8% at baseline to 77.4% at Month 3, P=.002) and sleep quality (proportion of participants reporting poor sleeping quality dropped from 3.9% at baseline to 1.2% at Month 3, P=.002) was also observed.
Conclusions:
There were significant decline in some personal preventive measures and significant improvement in mental health status among a cohort of Chinese factory workers who resumed work during COVID-19. Health promotion are needed to maintain good compliance to personal preventive measures. Psychological support for workers during work resumption is necessary.
Citation
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