The Prevalence of Psychological Distress in Employees and Associated Occupational Risk Factors

Abstract

High psychological distress is pervasive across all employee subtypes and remains largely untreated. Risk factors identified will guide the targeting of mental health promotion, prevention and screening programs.

Epidemiology of Psychological Distress

“…These types of work schedules can also lead to negative effects on family life and social isolation, which will further endanger the mental health of workers. All in all, work schedule and work hours increase the risk of psychological distress (Hayasaka et al 2007, Hilton et al 2008, Marchand, Demers, and Durand 2005b, Matthews, Power, and Stansfeld 2001, Sekine et al 2006, Spurgeon, Harrington, and Cooper 1997. Conflicting relationships at work, either with co-workers or supervisors, can create a stressful experience that may impact on the mental health of workers.…”

Employee psychological distress and treated prevalence by indices of rurality

“…However, previous work has shown that the response rate does not correlate with prevalence of high K6. 5 Prior studies have shown that respondents and non-respondents to a HRA survey have comparable levels of depression. 62,64 Although the sample is non-random, and has a response rate of 25%, it is one of the largest samples of employees collected and the sheer volume of data infers a certain amount of validity.…”

“…5,41 In brief, 58 large employers (more than 1,000 employees) agreed to participate in the study. HPQ surveys were circulated to employees of the participating organisations using either paper-based or webbased methods.…”

“…[1][2][3][4] There is a high prevalence (4.5%) of high psychological distress (using the Kessler 6 [K6]) in employees and 78% of employees with high levels of psychological distress are not receiving professional assistance. 5 Using Australian population data, Lim et al 6 report that the one-month prevalence of any mental disorder in full-time employees is 10.5%. However, there is limited information on the rural-urban distribution of employee mental health problems and the impact of rurality on treatment rates in employed populations.…”

With long hours of work, might depression then lurk? A nationwide prospective follow-up study among Danish senior medical consultants

“…Long work hours may confer a strain that is detrimental to health (1)(2)(3)(4)(5)(6)(7)(8). A potential negative health effect of long work hours is the risk of depression (9)(10)(11)(12)(13)(14)(15)(16)(17)(18)(19)(20)(21)(22)(23)(24)(25).…”