Association between daily commute and subjective health complaints among the office workers in an urban community.

PURPOSE

To determine the prevalence of subjective health complaints (SHC) among metropolitan office commuters and to investigate the relationship between SHC and socio-demographic, commuting, and work-related factors.

METHODS

The participants in this cross-sectional study were 628 full-time bank employees in Dhaka. One-month prevalence was determined using the SHC inventory scale. Internal consistency was determined using factor analysis. The discrepancy between socio-demographic and SHC was summarized using descriptive analysis. To discover factors related to SHC, random logistic regression intercept models were employed.

RESULTS

Sadness (54.0 percent), low back pain (36.6 percent), anxiety (34.2 percent), pseudo-neurological disorders (26.6 percent), and musculoskeletal pains (20.2%) were the most common health complaints. The relationship between traffic congestion and SHCs was found to be statistically significant (p = 0.001) for the majority of complaints. According to multilevel analysis, long-distance office commuters were 7.29 times more likely than short-distance commuters to suffer from musculoskeletal pains (AOR = 7.29, 95% CI = 3.58-15.21). Furthermore, we discovered that long-distance commuters were 2.72 times more likely to complain about flu (AOR = 2.72, 95% CI = 1.22-6.27), 1.56 times more likely to complain about pseudo-neurological problems (AOR = 1.56, 95% CI = 0.84-2.92), and 1.88 times more likely to complain about gastrointestinal problems (AOR = 1.88, 95% CI = 0.69-5.41).

CONCLUSION

In Dhaka, we found a high prevalence of health concerns among full-time bank personnel. A significant prevalence of health complaints was related to traffic congestion, long commutes, and use of public transportation. Reducing daily commuting time, switching modes of transportation, and avoiding traffic congestion could help to alleviate the burden of health concerns experienced by regular office commuters.