The Relationship between Social Support and General Health among Employees of Ceramic Tile Industry: A case study

Abstract

Introduction: Workers' health is highly important since it affects a country’s industry. Social support plays an important role in employees’ health. The purpose of this study was to determine the relationship between social support and general health among employees of Yazd Ceram Tile Company in 2017.

Methods: In this cross-sectional study, 224 employees of Yazd Ceram Tile Company were selected using census sampling. Data collection instruments included demographic information questionnaire, Goldberg General Health Questionnaire (GHQ), and Social Support Appraisals (SS‐A) scale. Data were analyzed by SPSS 21 software using Mann-Whitney, Kruskal-Wallis, and Spearman correlation tests.

Results: Social support had an inverse relationship with all domains of general health. In other words, increased social support improved the employees’ general health.  Social support had a significant relationship with the two dimensions of social dysfunction and depression (p<0.0001 and p= 0.028, respectively).

Conclusion: The factory staffs were at a relatively good level of social support, but they were close to the cut-off point considering their general health level. In general, higher levels of social support can lead to higher levels of general health in employees. This relationship is more important in terms of social functioning and depression (two dimensions of general health).