The Clinical and Occupational Correlates of Work Productivity Loss Among Employed Patients With Depression

Abstract

Employers who are developing strategies to reduce health-related productivity loss may benefit from aiming their interventions at the employees who need them most. We determined whether depression's negative productivity impact varied with the type of work employees performed. Subjects (246 with depression and 143 controls) answered the Work Limitations Questionnaire and additional work questions. Occupational requirements were measured objectively. In multiple regression analyses, productivity was most influenced by depression severity (P < 0.01 in 5/5 models). However, certain occupations also significantly increased employee vulnerability to productivity loss. Losses increased when employees had occupations requiring proficiency in decision-making and communication and/or frequent customer contact (P < 0.05 in 3/5 models). The Work Limitations Questionnaire can help employers to reduce productivity loss by identifying health and productivity improvement priorities.A wealth of research now shows that depression can exact a heavy economic toll on businesses and their employees. [1][2][3][4] Depression in the working-age population is estimated to cost this nation at least $12.4 billion annually in medical care and at least another $44 billion annually in lost productive work time. 4,5 Researchers estimate that approximately half of the employers' total costs for depression are the result of employee work absences and disability claims. 3 One of the main reasons for these staggering costs is that one in eight working-age adults, 18 to 54 years of age, is estimated to be clinically depressed, and half will experience a recurrence within 1 year of remission. 6 Employers have relied mainly on medical care for help in treating their employees' depression. By doing so, some companies have hoped to minimize the condition's secondary Copyright © by American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine Address correspondence to: Debra Lerner, MS, PhD, The Health Institute, Tufts-New England Medical Center, 750 Washington Street, NEMC #345, Boston, MA 02111; dlerner@tufts-nemc.org.. NIH Public AccessAuthor Manuscript J Occup Environ Med. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2015 January 05. NIH-PA Author ManuscriptNIH-PA Author Manuscript NIH-PA Author Manuscript impact on employee work performance and productivity. There is some rationale for this approach. In addition to the depression impact studies cited previously, 1-4 studies suggest that patients whose symptoms improve subsequently have less work impairment. [7][8][9][10] Recently, a few treatment trials have found that compared with patients receiving usual care, those getting high-quality depression treatment have fewer work absences and less unemployment (Rost K, Smith JL, Elliott CE, Dickinson M, Duan N, submitted). 11In previous depression research, productivity loss has been included as a secondary outcome and few explanatory variables, other than depression symptoms or depression treatment, were included. This study addresses productivity loss...

Common Mental Disorders in the Workforce: Recent Findings from Descriptive and Social Epidemiology

“…Two studies allowed estimation of the relative impact of absenteeism compared with presenteeism, yielding very different results. Stewart and associates found that 86% of total lost time associated with major depression was due to presenteeism (36), whereas Wang and associates found that only 25% was due to presenteeism (37 study also allowed additional investigation of the nature of the relation between presenteeism and depression symptoms, an area that has received very little investigation (38,39). Depression symptoms related to concentration and tiredness or sleep were each associated with impaired functioning in mental-interpersonal skills, time demands, and output.…”

“…We explored this further by reviewing epidemiologic studies that used more sophisticated measures of presenteeism in conjunction with a standardized measure of mental health. We located only 2 studies meeting the inclusion criteria (36,37), so we also included another study that met all the criteria except that it was in a selected population (38,39) (Table 3). Each study used a different measure of presenteeism.…”

Depressive symptoms and self-reported occupational injury in small and medium-sized companies

“…Psychological conditions are correlated with physical conditions (Lindberg et al 1994), with increased absenteeism among employees, and with increasing costs in the workplace (Johnson et al 1992;Stansfeld et al 1995). In particular, depression is emerging as a widespread problem insofar as it is related to a signiWcant portion of the costs associated with lost labor hours and lowered productivity (Berndt et al 2000;Kessler et al 2001;Lerner et al 2004;Simon et al 2000Simon et al , 2001. In addition, the job performance of workers with symptoms of depression inevitably declines in the absence of adequate treatment (Steward et al 2003).…”

Employees with mental illness – Possibilities and barriers in professional activity

“…efektywna decyzyjność, wzmożona koncentracja, konieczność opiniowania) oraz wymagają komunikacji i/lub częstych kontaktów z klientem [36].…”

“…Wyniki badań nie pozostawiają wątpliwości co do wpływu zaburzeń depresyjnych na obecność w pracy [34]. Absencja chorobowa wśród badanych osób z depresją wynosi 0,3-3,8 dnia pracy opuszczonego w miesiącu [34,36,37]. Badania, które wykazały powyżej 1 opuszczonego dnia, były badaniami klinicznymi obejmującymi cięższe przypadki chorobowe [34].…”