Common symptoms in middle aged women: their relation to employment status,psychosocial work conditions and social support in a Swedish setting

Study objective-Over the past few decades there has been a growing interest among researchers, in women's overall life circumstances and their relatio n to women's health status. For example, paid employment has been considere d an important part of women's living conditions in Western societies as th e number of women entering the labour market has grown constantly over the past decades. When comparing men's and women's health, one of the most cons istent findings is a higher rate of symptoms among women. The most commonly reported symptoms in women are depressive symptoms, symptoms of bodily ten sion and chronic pain from muscles and joints. The aim of this study was to investigate whether socioeconomic factors, employment status, psychosocial work conditions and social network/support are associated with middle aged women's health status in terms of common symptoms. Design-A mailed questionnaire was used in a cross sectional design assessin g socioeconomic factors, employment status, psychosocial work conditions ac cording to the demand/control model, social network/support and an index ba sed on the 15 most frequent symptoms presented by middle aged women when se eking health care. Setting-A rural community with 13 200 inhabitants in the western part of Sw eden. Participants-Women were randomly selected from the general population in th e study area, 40 to 50 years of age. The response rate was 81.7 per cent. Main results-Women who were nonemployed had a significantly increased odds of a high level of common symptoms (OR=2.82; 95% confidence intervals 1.69, 4.70), as well as women exposed to job strain (OR=3.27; 1.92, 5.57), indep endently of the level of social network/support. Furthermore, exposure to l ow social support, low social anchorage or low social participation indepen dently showed significantly increased odds of a high level of common sympto ms (OR=2.75; 1.71, 4.42; OR=2.91; 1.81, 4.69 and OR=1.69; 1.10, 2.61, respe ctively). Conclusions-Work related factors, such as non-employment and job strain, an d circumstances within the private sphere, such as social network/support, seem equally important for middle aged women's health status. These finding s ought to have important policy implications and also to be of major impor tance in a primary health care setting when meeting women who seek health c are because of common symptoms.