Impact of multiple roles on psychological distress among Japanese workers

Background and Objective: Having multiple roles such as worker, mother/father and caregiver for family members may lead to psychological distress. The purpose of this study was to examine the differential impacts of multiple roles associating with psychological distress among Japanese workers. Methods: We studied 721 workers (355 men and 366 women) aged 18-83 years in a cross-sectional study. The K10 questionnaire was used to examine psychological distress. The number of individual roles was defined by a summation of four different kinds of role: marital role, parenting role, caregiver role, and employment role. Results: The proportion of participants with a high K10 score was 15%. Having triple roles significantly decreased the risk of psychological distress by 0.37-fold in women and 0.41-fold in men compared with those who had single role. The women who had both employment and marital roles had significantly fewer psychological distress (odds ratio, OR 0.27) compared with those who had only employment role. Furthermore, working married women who had childrearing or caregiving of elderly parent had significantly fewer psychological distress (OR 0.33) compared with their unmarried counterparts. Conclusions: The present study demonstrated that workers without any additional roles had increased risk of psychological distress. The degree of psychological distress is not determined solely by number of roles. It is important to balance between work and family life to reduce role conflict and/or role submersion, which in turn may enable them to prevent psychological distress.