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. 2018 Aug 31;18(1):1084.
doi: 10.1186/s12889-018-5997-1.

Character strengths as protective factors against depression and suicidality among male and female employees

Hye Ri Kim  1 , Sun Mi Kim  2 , Ji Sun Hong  1 , Doug Hyun Han  1 , Seo-Koo Yoo  3 , Kyung Joon Min  1 , Young Sik Lee  1
Affiliations

Character strengths as protective factors against depression and suicidality among male and female employees

Hye Ri Kim et al. BMC Public Health. .

Abstract

Background: So far, studies on workplace mental health have only focused on work-related environmental risk factors, disregarding both protective and individual factors of employees. Therefore, we aimed to identify character strengths that act as protective factors against depressive moods and suicidality in Korean employees.

Methods: In total, 84 male and 151 female employees (aged 19-50 years) reported their sociodemographic characteristics; depressive symptoms, as measured by the Beck Depression Inventory-II; suicidality, as measured by the Korean version of the MINI International Neuropsychiatric Interview suicidality module; and character strengths, as measured by the 24 Character Strength Alphas on the Values in Action Survey-72. We conducted a hierarchical logistic regression, in which depressive mood and suicidality served as the categorical outcome variables.

Results: In females, scores on the "curiosity" (B = 1.107, Wald = 10.207, odds ratio = 3.026, p = .001) and "love" (B = .862, Wald = 5.767, odds ratio = 2.367, p = .016) sub scales of the 24 Character Strength Alphas on the Values in Action Survey-72 were statistically significant predictors of having depressive mood. Additionally, females' scores on "judgment" (B = - 1.405, Wald = 5.663, odds ratio = .245, p = .017) and "kindness" (B = - 1.456, Wald = 6.486, odds ratio = .233, p = .011) were protective factors against suicidality. In males, the "love" (B = 1.746, Wald = 4.279, odds ratio = 5.729, p = .039) score was a predictor of having depressive mood, while "teamwork" (B = - 2.204, Wald = 4.666, odds ratio = .110, p = .031) and "creativity" (B = - 1.384, Wald = 4.202, odds ratio = .251, p = .040) scores were protective factors against having depressive mood and suicidality, respectively.

Conclusions: We suggest that focusing on "judgement" and "kindness" in female employees, and "teamwork" and "creativity" in male employees, and engaging in activities that use these strengths at the workplace can be protective factors against depression and suicidality. Future research should focus on developing interventions to promote these character strengths among employees at the workplace.

Keywords: Character strengths; Depression; Positive psychology; Suicidality; Workplace mental health.

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Conflict of interest statement

Ethics approval and consent to participate

This survey study was approved by the Chung-Ang University Institutional Review Board. Written informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

Consent for publication

Not applicable.

Competing interests

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Publisher’s Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

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