Self-reported depression and anxiety symptoms and usage of computers and mobile phones among working-age Finns

Abstract

The aim of the work is to study self-reported depression and anxiety symptoms among working-age Finns using logistical regression models. The study was carried out as a cross-sectional study by posting a questionnaire to 15,000 working-age persons. The responses (6121) revealed that 101 (1.7%) Finnish working-age persons suffered depression very often and 77 (1.3%) suffered anxiety very often during the last 12 months. Symptoms uncovered in the comparative analysis of respondents who had quite often or more often depression to respondents who had less depression showed differentiation. The same result was obtained in the analysis of self-reported anxiety symptoms. With the logistical regression models (from depression and anxiety), we found associations between physical symptoms (in shoulder) and depression and between different mental symptoms and anxiety or depression. In the future, it is important to take into accout that persons with physical symptoms can also have mental symptoms (depression or anxiety).

Keywords:

• depression
• anxiety
• symptoms
• questionnaire
• logistical regression model

Acknowledgements

The assistance of the staff (Noomi Suuronen, Jari Latva-Teikari and Riitta Lehtelä) of the Environmental Health group, Tampere University of Technology is gratefully acknowledged.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.