{
  "abstract": "Objectives Mental health at the workplace has less established causal models, especially for issues like depression, anxiety and stress at work. To assess the effect of the geographical location of the factory on depression, anxiety and stress of garment sector workers in South India.Material and Methods An explanatory sequential approach mixed methods study was conducted in garment factories located in 5 different districts of South India. A semi-structured questionnaire with socio-demographic details and the DASS-21 (Depression, Anxiety, Stress Scale) for mental health was developed for quantitative data collection. Inferential statistics was done with regression models. In-depth interviews were conducted among selected participants, and thematic analysis was done.Results A total of 1042 workers were interviewed. The geographical distribution of the study participants was 46% from Tirupur, 27% from Bengaluru, 10% from Krishnagiri - Hosur, 10% from Dindigul - Karur and 7% from Chennai. Prevalence of depression, anxiety and stress was 13.5%, 10.1% and 20.1%, respectively. Building a regression model for each of the mental health parameters with location as a predictor, adjusting for other variables and Bengaluru (better mental health) as a reference category, Chennai had 2.87 times the risk for Depression, 10.48 times the risk of Anxiety and 1.3 times the risk for Stress. The in-depth interviews resulted in 4 major reasons for the mental health issues concerning location: the presence of other factories in the vicinity as competition, more time in commute, lack of work throughout the year, and unavailability of other job opportunities.Conclusion Depression, Anxiety, and Stress prevalence vary across different cities of the factory location within South India. The geographical location, along with the various factors that characterise a city, plays a role not just in the business end of things but also in the employees’ mental health. Factors like clustering of factories, long commute, and unavailability of work throughout the year directly affect the mental health of employees.Funding Primark under ABF - Associated British Foods, London, towards Mental Health programs in the supply chain",
  "authors": [
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "Division of Occupational Health, St John’s Medical College, Bangalore"
      ],
      "name": "Sakthi Arasu"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "Division of Occupational Health, St John’s Medical College, Bangalore"
      ],
      "name": "Nancy Angeline Gnanaselvam"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "Division of Occupational Health, St John’s Medical College, Bangalore"
      ],
      "name": "Bobby Joseph"
    }
  ],
  "title": "8266463 Latitudes and Longitudes in Mental Health: Effect of the workplace’s location on the mental health of garment workers: A mixed methods study from South India",
  "uid": "5ddc55a1-9a57-557b-a96f-73ea73717368"
}