The Prevalence of Psychological Distress in Employees and... : Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine (original) (raw)

Original Articles

Hilton, Michael F. PhD; Whiteford, Harvey A. MBBS, MPH; Sheridan, Judith S. M Clin Psych; Cleary, Catherine M. Grad Dip App Sc; Chant, David C. PhD; Wang, Philip S. MD, DrPH; Kessler, Ronald C. PhD

From the School of Population Health, (Dr Hilton, Dr Whiteford), The University of Queensland, Herston Queensland, Australia; Queensland Centre for Mental Health Research, (Dr Hilton, Dr Whiteford, Dr Chant, Ms Sheridan, Ms Cleary), Wacol Queensland, Australia; School of Medicine, (Dr Chant), The University of Queensland, Herston, Queensland, Australia; Department of Health Care Policy, (Dr Wang, Dr Kessler), Harvard Medical School, Boston, Mass; and Division of Services and Intervention Research, (Dr Wang), National Institute of Mental Health, Rockville, MD.

CME Available for this Article at ACOEM.org

Supported by 1) the Department of Health and Ageing, Australian Government, Canberra. 2) Queensland Health Department, Brisbane. 3) Beyondblue: the national depression initiative, Melbourne, and 4) The Australian Rotary Health Research Fund, Parramatta, Australia.

Michael Hilton, Harvey Whiteford, Judith Sheridan, Catherine Cleary, Philip Wang, and Ronald Kessler have no commercial interest related to this article.

Address correspondence to: Michael Hilton, PhD, Queensland Centre for Mental Health Research, Locked Bag 500, Richlands, Queensland, 4077, Australia; E-mail: [email protected].

Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine 50(7):p 746-757, July 2008. | DOI: 10.1097/JOM.0b013e31817e9171

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Abstract

Objective:

There is limited occupational health industry data pertaining to 1) the prevalence of psychological distress in various employee subtypes and 2) risk factors for employee psychological distress.

Method:

The employees of 58 large public and private sector employers were invited to complete the Kessler 6 (K6) as part of the Health and Performance at Work Questionnaire. A K6 score of ≥13 was chosen to indicate high psychological distress.

Results:

Data on 60,556 full-time employees indicate that 4.5% of employees have high psychological distress of which only 22% were in current treatment. Occupational risk factors identified include long working hours, sales staff and non-traditional gender roles.

Conclusion:

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.