LIFE QUALITY AND PHYSICAL ACTIVITY LEVEL OF WORKERS WITH DIFFERENT WORKING TIMES

Abstract

Objective: To describe workers’ life quality and physical activity level. Complementarily, the employees’ working time in the company was associated to their physical activity level and compared to their life quality. Materials and Methods: The sample was composed by 375 workers of both genders from a national company of electrical energy in Pernambuco. Then, those workers were subdivided into two groups according to their working time in the company: up to 15 years (n=166) with age mean of 36.08±6.80 years and more than 15 years (n=209) with age mean of 55.37± 5.17 years. Statistical analysis was made using Mann Whitney and Chi-square tests with p less than 0.05. Results: The employees having more working time presented better levels in the physical (p less than 0.05), psychological (p less than 0.01) and environmental (p less than 0.05) domains. The associative analysis between the physical activity level and the working time has revealed that the workers having more working time were more physically actives (X2=4.617; p=0.03). Conclusion: It is concluded that most of the investigated sample has showed satisfactory levels in the quality of life and level of physical activity. As a result contrary to expectations is the fact that workers having more working time in the company have proven to be more physically active, contradicting the findings of the literature. DESCRIPTORS Physical activity. Quality of life. Workers.