1. INTRODUCTION:

South Korea has been industrialized and urbanized since the 1960s, and thus the population of young adults has rapidly increased and the proportion of women and elderly people has highly increased in rural areas ¹.

These changes in the rural population have also brought changes in the proportion of female farmers who participate in farming, as well as their roles. While the proportion of male farmers decreased from 71.7% in 1970 to 47.5% in 2002, the proportion of female farmers nearly doubled from 28.3% to 52.5% over the same period². The labor hours of rural women also gradually increased from 27.5% in 1965 to 42.6% in 1980, and to 47.8% in 2000³.

Female farmers showed higher levels of participation in growing bare ground vegetables (73.1%) or flowering plants/special crops (71.6%), and 62.5% of them also participated in rice cropping⁴. In addition, the average number of hours spent by female farmers on farm work was 10.3 hours per day in the busy farming season and 4.4 hours per day in the farming off-season. This shows that on average, female farmers spent two hours longer on their work in the busy farming season than South Korean workers who spent eight hours⁵.

Because agricultural work requires repeated physical activities for long hours, female farmers mainly experience functional disorders in the nervous and musculoskeletal systems, and are even under the threat of mental health impairments due to excessive stress⁵. With the rapid growth of ecommerce markets, female farmers have recently performed the roles of managers and sellers, as well as producers, and thus they have experienced health problems resulting from excessive work⁶. These health problems shown in female farmers affect the quality of their personal lives, and become a factor that reduces agricultural productivity.

In a survey on the status of female farmers, the female farmers recognized “reducing excessive labor” and “expanding welfare facilities and systems” as the most urgent tasks⁴. However, labor shortage is a serious problem in South Korea’s rural areas, and thus reducing labor hours is difficult and has practical limitations because it is directly linked to incomes. In addition, with the recent aging of female farmers, many of them suffer from neurological or musculoskeletal diseases, and thus they increasingly pay attention to health management.

Therefore, this study aimed to examine the correlations between the physical function and quality of life of female farmers who participated in a health promotion program conducted in certain areas of Chungcheongnam-do, and to provide the results as basic data for future studies.

2. MATERIALS AND METHODS:

2.1. Subjects:

The subjects were selected from the female farmers who applied for a musculoskeletal disorder prevention program that was conducted in the five rural areas of Chungcheongdam-do in 2015 and 2016. The final subjects were 101 active participants in an interview and physical evaluation.

2.2 Test methods:

2.2.1 Physical function:

The subjects’ physical competence was evaluated as follows: They were measured while performing arm curls and standing up from a sitting position on chair to identify their muscular endurance in the upper and lower extremities among the categories of the senior fitness test developed by Rikli and Jones⁷. The distance between the left and right hands during back scratch was measured to measure flexibility. The one leg standing with eyes opened & one leg standing with eyes closed test and the functional reach test were performed to measure the balance ability⁸. In addition, the tandem walk test was performed to examine agility in the lower extremities⁹.

2.2.2 Health-related quality of life:

Short Form-8 (SF-8) is a shortened form of Short Form-36 (SF-36) that is a representative measurement tool for the quality of life. The SF-8 consists of questions representing the eight subdomains of the SF-36. The eight subdomains are general health perception, physical functioning, role limitations due to physical problems (role physical), bodily pain, vitality, social functioning, mental health, and role limitations due to emotional problems (role emotional). The SF-8 score was produced using the score calculation method suggested as a guideline by the SF-8 developer¹⁰. A higher score in a subdomain indicates a higher level of health in the quality of life in the respective subdomain^11,12.

2.3 Data processing:

The data collected were analyzed based on the Statistics Program of SPSS Version 12.0. In addition, descriptive statistics and Pearson’s correlation analysis were employed.

3. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION:

3.1 General characteristics of the subjects and their incidence of musculoskeletal diseases

The average age of female farmers was 65.35. 70% of them lived with their husbands and 24.8% of them were bereaved. 73% of the subjects received a middle school or higher education. Their main types of farming were dry-field farming (50.5%) and paddy farming (38.6%), and they had an average 33 years of experience in farming. Their average number of labor hours was 6.7 hours per day. With regard to their farm work, 28.7% of the subjects responded “manageable”, and 32.7% and 28.7% answered “a little difficult” and “very difficult”, respectively.

Their musculoskeletal symptoms were as follows: The incidence of musculoskeletal diseases that fell under NIOSH standard 1 (the continuance of a symptom for at least a week or the occurrence of a symptom at least once a month over the past year) was 91%. Out of this, the cases that only met NIOSH standard 1 accounted for 18.8% and the cases that only met NIOSH standard 2 accounted for 35.6%. In addition, the cases that met NIOSH standard 3 or above, in which patients complain of “severe pain” or “very severe pain”, took up 36.6%.

3.2 Characteristics of physical function and the quality of life in the subjects:

The characteristics of the subjects’ physical function are presented in Table 1. The mean value of their grip strength-right hand was 21.58Kg. This was higher than the standard value (19.05±5.00Kg) of grip strength (dominant hand) in the physical evaluation of rural elderly people in South Korea, which was reported by Lee and Seo ⁸. In addition, the mean number of arm curls was 25.67±6.17 times, which was higher than the standard value of 18.07±4.01 times, and the mean number of sitting and standing up on chair for 30 seconds was 18.89±7.81 times, which was higher than the standard value of 12.83±2.83 times. The mean duration of one leg balance with eyes closed (9.07±11.10 seconds) was also longer than the standard value of 4.67±3.79 seconds⁸.

The mean values of the physical function of elderly women, which were reported by Kim et al. ¹³, were 14.95±3.77 times for arm curls, 16.05±4.74 times for sitting and standing up on chair for 30 seconds, and –10.32±13.01cm for back scratch. In this study, all mean values in the same categories were higher than those reported by Kim et al.¹³.

According to the standards for the physical evaluation of South Korean elderly men and women, which were reported by Choi et al.¹⁴, the mean values of grip strength-left hand and grip strength-right hand produced in this study were within the average ranges of grip strength in women aged 65 to 69. The mean value of sitting and standing up on chair for 30 seconds was 18.89 times, falling within the “strong” level (19 to 24 times), and the mean value of sit and reach was 13.95cm, falling within the “moderate” level (12.0-18.1cm).

Table 1. Characteristics of the subjects’ physical competence (N=101)

Items	Units	M ± SD
Grip strength-Right	Kg	21.58±5.65
Grip strength-Left	Kg	21.11±5.60
Arm curl – Right (AC-R)	times	25.67±6.17
Arm curl – Left (AC-L)	times	25.20±6.09
Sitting and stand up on chair(30sec)	times	18.89±7.81
Push-up	times	18.95±7.86
One leg standing with eyes closed	sec	9.07±11.10
Functional reaching -Right (FRR)	cm	31.73±8.29
Functional reaching -Left (FRL)	cm	33.24±8.03
Back scratch (BS)	cm	-8.37±8.75
Sit and reach (SR)	cm	13.95±8.13
Sit and reach	sec	9.16±3.71
Foot stepping (FS)	times	27.26±7.10

The characteristics of the subjects’ quality of life are presented in Table 2. Of the eight subdomains, the subjects marked relatively lower scores in general health perception, bodily pain, and vitality. Their general health perception (38.35±6.88 points), bodily pain (42.33±10.00 points), and vitality (39.25±8.14) were within the moderate levels. On the other hand, the quality of life score in the subdomain of role emotional was 50.34±8.55 points: the highest among the eight subdomains, which was followed by social functioning and mental health¹⁰. However, the quality of life scores in the subdomains of general health perception and vitality for the female farmers who participated in this study were lower than those of disabled individuals with chronic stroke reported by Choi¹⁵. This suggested the need to review and improve this study. Considering the reality of South Korea’s rural areas in which feminization and aging are becoming serious problems, research should be conducted more actively to identify and improve the quality of life of female farmers.

Table 2. Characteristics of the subjects’ quality of life (N=101, unit: score)

Subscales	M±SD
General health perception(GH)	38.35±6.88
Physical functioning(PF)	43.11±8.75
Role physical(RP)	40.26±10.47
Bodily pain(BP)	42.33±10.00
Vitality(VT)	39.25±8.14
Social functioning(SF)	46.94±10.10
Mental health(MH)	44.37±9.27
Role emotional(RE)	50.34±8.55
Total score	344.98±49.17

3.3 Correlations between the subjects’ physical function and quality of life

Correlations between the subjects’ physical function and quality of life are presented in Table 3. The total quality of life score showed statistically significant correlations with the categories of physical function such as arm curl– right & left, functional reaching-right (FRR), back scratch (BS), and foot stepping (FS) (p<0.05). In terms of correlations between the subdomains of physical function and the quality of life, arm curl-right was correlated with physical functioning and role physical. Functional reaching-right showed statistically significant correlations with physical functioning, role physical, bodily pain, and social functioning. Back scratch was also correlated with physical functional, role physical, social functioning, and role emotional. Finally, foot stepping showed statistically significant correlations with physical functioning, role physical, bodily pain, social functioning, and mental health.

Table 3. Correlations between the subjects’ physical competence and quality of life (N=101)

Items	GH	PF	RP	BP	VT	SF	MH	RE	Total
Grip strength-Right	0.23^*	0.47^**	0.54^**	0.36^**	0.23^*	0.31^**	0.19	0.07	0.45^**
Grip strength-Left	0.22^*	0.46^**	0.49^**	0.32^**	0.22^*	0.22^*	0.19	0.09	0.42^**
Arm curl – Right (AC-R)	0.18	0.28^**	0.29^**	0.18	-0.03	0.14	0.20	0.16	0.26^**
Arm curl – Left (AC-L)	0.25^*	0.27^**	0.25^*	0.25^*	0.01	0.22^*	0.22^*	0.16	0.31^**
Sitting and stand up on chair (30sec)	0.21^*	0.29^**	0.28^**	0.19^*	0.14	0.14	0.08	0.02	0.26^**
Push-up	0.14	0.23^*	0.26^**	0.30^**	0.25^*	0.30^*	0.24^*	0.20^*	0.36^**
One leg standing with eyes closed	0.00	0.25^*	0.20^*	0.17	0.04	0.08	0.00	-0.16	0.12
Tandem walk	-0.09	-0.40^**	-0.41^**	-0.38^**	-0.12	-0.31^**	-0.19	-0.20	-0.40^**
Functional reaching -Right (FRR)	0.11	0.48^**	0.44^**	0.30^**	0.20	0.33^**	0.23	0.16	0.43^**
Functional reaching -left (FRL)	0.07	0.27^**	0.26^**	0.22	0.07	0.19	0.26^**	0.14	0.28^**
Back scratch (BS)	-0.10	-0.44^**	-0.39^**	-0.35^**	-0.12	-0.26^**	-0.20	-0.21^*	-0.39^**
Sit and reach (SR)	0.37^**	0.24^*	0.28^**	0.23^*	0.19	0.27^**	0.03	-0.06	0.24^*
Foot stepping (FS)	0.09	0.38^**	0.36^**	0.30^*	0.19	0.26^**	0.20^*	0.16	0.37^**

*p<0.05, **p<0.001, Subscales: GH = general health perception, PF = physical functioning, RP = role physical, BP = bodily pain, VT = vitality, SF = social function, MH = mental health, RE = role emotional

4. CONCLUSION:

In this study, the female farmers’ quality of life showed a high correlation with their physical function. This study could confirm the fact that for the effective health management of female farmers whose roles are increasingly diversifying, it is important to manage their physical function that affects their quality of life.

5. REFERENCES:

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2.     Gim GM, Position improvement plan of the Korean women farmers, Agricultural research, 2004, 11(3), pp. 91-125. http://www.farp.info/

3.     Kim UC, Shin YS, Kim DS, Hong CU, The gender difference in agriculture workers survey of work-related musculoskeletal disorders. The Ergonomics society of Korea, Conference Proceeding, 2010, No. 10, pp. 94-98.

4.     Korea Rural Economic Institute, 2013 Survey on the Korean Women Farmers, 2014, http://www.mafra.go.kr:8080/new_woman/bbs/detail.php?board_id=bbs8&content_uid=670

5.     Park CK, Effects of expanding the role and health care of women farmers on quality of life, Rural economy, 2005, 28(4), pp. 33-49. http://www.riss.kr/link?id=A75527007

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Received on 08.07.2018 Modified on 12.09.2018

Research J. Pharm. and Tech 2019; 12(2):741-744.

DOI: 10.5958/0974-360X.2019.00131.8