Relationship between executive functional disorders and daily life problems in mine workers

Sinem Tuğçe Yardibi, Relationship between Executive Functional Disorders and Daily Life Problems in Mine Workers. Zonguldak Bulent Ecevit University Faculty of Medicine, Thesis of Mental Health and Diseases. Zonguldak, 2019. Objective: The specific conditions and difficulties of the working environment are known to have negative effects on the mental health of mine workers. However, there is no study evaluating executive functions and activities of daily living. Therefore, the present study was conducted to compare the personal characteristics, executive functions, family functions, impulsive buying tendencies, depression and anxiety symptoms of mine workers with healthy controls and to determine the effect of executive functions on daily life functions. Materials and Methods: The sample of the study consists of 100 volunteers, 50 mine workers and 50 healthy controls. Personal and clinical information of the participants who were included in the study were evaluated with socio-demographic data form, family functions with Family Assessment Scale, impulsive purchasing tendencies with Impulsive Purchasing Scale, depressive symptoms with Beck Depression Inventory and anxiety symptoms with Beck Anxiety Scale. Afterwards, executive function performances of mine workers were graded with Stroop Test, Wisconsin Card Matching Test, London Tower Test, Verbal Memory Process Test and Raven Standard Progressive Matrices Test. The data obtained were recorded in the appropriate data sets and analyzed. Results: Mine employees divorced 6 times more than healthy controls, they used about 2 times more alcohol, 2.5 times more gambling-betting-chance games, 2.5 times more borrowing status was determined. It was found that 28,0% of the mine worker group had domestic violence but the control group had no domestic violence. It was found that mine workers had statistically lower scores in the general functions subscale (t = 2.887, p <0.01). Stroop Test, Wisconsin Card Matching Test, London Tower Test, Verbal Memory Process Test and Raven Standard Progressive Matrices Tests evaluating executive function performances were found to be statistically lower in mine workers than healthy controls (p≤0.05). It was also found that poor performance in executive functions had negative effects on family functions (especially general functions and problem solving). Conclusion: This study demonstrates the necessity of preventive and curative interventions on the executive and family functions of mine workers. In addition, our study suggests that the reason for having more daily life problems such as alcohol use, borrowing and domestic violence may be the poor performance of the mine workers. Large-scale follow-up studies are needed to better understand the impact of mine workers' executive functions on daily life events. Key Words: Underground mine, mine worker, executive functions, family functions, working conditions, impulsive purchasing.