Determinants of the Proactiveness of Female Migrant Workers with Psychological Distress Seeking Allied Health Services.

Seeking utilization of allied health services (AHS) has significant implications for psychological distress self-management. However, utilization of AHS by Chinese female migrant workers (FMWs) has not received enough attention. This study, therefore, aims to explore what contributes to FMWs' proactiveness in utilizing AHS. A cross-sectional study was conducted to collect data in terms of socio-demographic characteristics, work-related characteristics and AHS accessibility. A logistic regression model was adopted to examine association of these predictors with proactiveness in seeking AHS. 992 FMWs with psychological distress were interviewed with stratified multiple-stage sampling. The results indicated that Basic Public Health Services (BPHS) is a salient predictor affecting proactiveness in seeking AHS. BPHS includes psychological counseling (Odds Ratio (OR) =2.401, 95% Confidence Interval (CI) =1.284-4.490, p = 0.006), psychotherapy (OR = 2.063, 95% CI = 1.438-2.960, p = 0.000) and health knowledge lectures (OR = 1.613, 95% CI = 1.115-2.333, p = 0.011). Moreover, sampled participants under 25 and those who received education for more than 9 years are more likely to seek AHS compared with other groups. In addition, proactiveness in seeking AHS is clearly associated with working hours per day. The probability is only 31.1% for those working more than 12 h per day to seek AHS actively compared with those working below 8 h (95% CI = 0.119-0.812, p = 0.017). There are no differences between those with 8-12 working hours and those working less than 8 h (OR = 1.100, 95% CI = 0.798-1.518, p = 0.560). The present findings suggest that policies be made to improve the coverage of BPHS and to provide specified AHS to meet the increasing demand of different social groups.