Anxiety and depression in mineshafts: a study on the mental health status of mining personnel

Mining work is conducted in complex and hazardous environments, and mining personnel are exposed over the long term to multiple occupational stressors, including physical hazards, high-risk accidents, shift work, and heavy workloads, making them a high-risk group for occupational mental health problems. However, existing research still offers relatively limited fine-grained comparison of mental health status across different positions within mining enterprises. A medium-sized phosphate mine enterprise (Mine L) was selected as the research site. With approval from the institutional ethics review committee and permission from Mine L, interviews and questionnaires were used to examine the Mental Health Status of Mining Personnel. In the first phase, in-depth interviews were conducted with 30 employees. In the second phase, the Self-Rating Anxiety Scale (SAS) and Self-Rating Depression Scale (SDS) were administered to all employees, yielding 147 valid questionnaires. Twenty-five point eighty-five percent of respondents had SAS scores at or above the screening cutoff, and 38.78% had SDS scores at or above the screening cutoff; mean scores on both scales were significantly higher than the national norms. A one-way ANOVA showed an overall statistically significant difference in SAS and SDS scores among mining personnel in different positions. Tukey HSD post-hoc comparisons showed that miners SAS scores were significantly lower than those of safety officers and managers, and their SDS scores were significantly lower than those of safety officers. Thematic analysis of the interview data identified three self-reported sources of anxiety and depression: safety management pressure, enterprise management problems, and economic and livelihood pressure. The overall mental health status of mining personnel in Mine L was relatively low, with safety officers showing the poorest mental health status among the three positions. This suggests that direct exposure to job responsibility is an important perspective for understanding differences in mental health status, offering a possible direction for targeted psychological interventions in mining enterprises.