The Health Promoting Lifestyle, Work Stress, and Mental Health of Foreign Laborers in Taiwan.

• Main Authors: Ting Chuang, 莊婷
• Other Authors: Shu-Ling Huang
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2013
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/24919646882657492663

碩士 === 中山醫學大學 === 心理學系暨臨床心理學碩士班 === 101 === There are nearly 500,000 foreign labors working in Taiwan in 2013. However, we have known little about their mental health situation. Therefore, exploring the health promoting lifestyle, work stress, and mental health of foreign labors in Taiwan is the aim of this study. In total, 310 objects that come from Philippines, Indonesia and Thailand were recruited in this study. They worked in fishing and construction industry in Taiwan. We carried out a quantitative questionnaire survey to explore the background information, health promoting lifestyle, work stress, and mental health status in this population. This survey has been conducted during the period from July 2011 to May 2012. Results showed that many differences in terms of occupational data existed by nationality among foreign labors. In general, Filipino workers got the highest scores in health promoting lifestyle, whereas Indonesians workers got the lowest. Regardless of nationality, the foreign workers in Taiwan had better performance in spiritual growth and interpersonal support compared with physical activity and health responsibility. The workers from Thailand had the least work stress in the three emigrated countries, but their mental health status was the worst. In Indonesian workers, their mental health status was acceptable but 72.1% of workers felt high work stress. In Indonesians workers, mental health status had a significantly positive correlation with health promoting lifestyle and had a negative correlation with work stress. In Thai workers, mental health status had a significantly negative correlation with their health promoting lifestyle, but the correlation with work stress had not been supported. Regarding with the predictors of mental health, the time of staying in Taiwan and work stress were significant for Indonesians workers, and the amount of Taiwanese friends and the relatives and friends from hometown in Taiwan were significant for Thai workers. Based on the results in the study, the researcher proposed some suggestions to enhance foreign workers’ mental health, such as increasing awareness of health responsibility of foreign workers, integrating exercise and leisure into daily lifestyle, and so on.