Factors Associated with Perceived Stress: Focused on Daily Walking and Access to Exercise Facilities

Abstract

The perceived stress incurs negative effect on health and closely related with quality life. This study aimed to explore relationship between regular daily walking, accessibility to exercise facility and perceived stress level in Korean adults analyzing nationally representative data. Total participants of 147,739 were analyzed in the data of Korea Community Health Survey 2018. To identify association between perceived stress and daily walking and access to exercise facilities, we conducted multivariable binomial logistic regression model.This study found that regular daily walking(aOR=0.902, p-value<0.001), and closer access to exercise facilities were significantly associated with lower perceived stress level(difficult: aOR=1.172; p-value<0.001, very difficult: aOR=1.300; p-value<0.001). This finding supports the importance of physical activity and supplying the exercise facilities close to the community residency could help relieve stress.This study provides basic evidence to underlying the importance of regular daily walking and distance to exercise facilities for reducing perceived stress level.