Table 2 Potential predictor variables
Gen1 | Gen2 | |
|---|---|---|
Occupational Factors | ||
Employment Status | Participants were asked to answer the following question: “Which of the following best describes your current employment situation?”. Options were: employed full-time; employed part-time; employed, but away from work (e.g. long service leave); unemployed looking for full time work; unemployed looking for part time work; not in the labour force (retired, not looking for work, unable to work); do paid casual work; doing unpaid or voluntary work; other. | Participants were asked to answer the following question: “What are you doing now?”. Options were: studying full-time; studying part-time; an apprenticeship; working full-time; working part-time; looking for work; carer for my child; carer for a family member; other. Participants were then asked “do you currently have a full-time, part-time or casual job of any kind?”. The options were: no, do not have a job – not seeking work; no, do not havea job – actively seeking work; yes, do work for payment or profit; yes, do unpaid work in a family business; yes, do other unpaid work. |
Length of time in current occupation | For those participants that had reported they were currently working, they were asked to report how many years or months they had been working in their current occupation or job. | |
Industry code | Participants were asked to report what industry do they work in for their current job. They were provided a list of industry codes. | |
Work hours | Participants were asked to report how many hours per week they usually work in all (current) jobs: 1–15; 16–24; 25–34; 35–39; 40; 41–48; 49–55; more than 55. Those participants that reported being unemployed or retired where asked to list the main jobs that had in the past 5 years, the industry code and approximate years and months in that role. | Participants were asked to report how many hours per week they usually work in the last 7 days. Those participants that reported being unemployed or retired where asked to list the main jobs that had in the past 5 years, the industry code and approximate years and months in that role. |
Description of work | Participants were asked to indicate on a scale of 1 (not al all) to 10 (extremely) if their work was “heavy or monotonous”. Participants were also asked to select which statement best described the work they do for their current job: sedentary occupation (e.g. secretary – where you spend most of your time sitting); standing occupation (e.g. shop assistant, security guard, spend most of your time standing/walking but not intense physical effort; Physical work (e.g. plumber, nurse – a job that requires some physical effort incuding handling of heavy objects and use of tools); heavy manual work (e.g. bricklayer – a job that involves very vigorous physical activity including handling very heavy objects). | |
Physical activity | International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ). The participants were asked to report the number of days and hours of vigorous, moderate and walking based physical activity in the last 7 days. Using these measures, the participants were classified as either low, moderate or vigorous levels of exercise. They were also asked to report how many hours they spent sitting on weekdays and weekends in the past 7 days. | |
Depression and anxiety | Depression Anxiety Stress Scale (DASS21) [20]. Participants were asked to respond to 21 statements on a 0–3 scale. The sub scale scores were used to classify the patient as having normal, mild, moderate or severe symptoms of depression. We dichotomized this variable into ‘no depression’ symptoms and ‘depression’ symptoms. We followed the same process for the anxiety subscale. | |