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Summer 2010 | Vol 13 No 4

Research update

Mark de la Hey

Past mental health disability episodes increase likelihood of future episodes

A new study from the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto, Ontario, has found that workers who have had disability leave for a mental illness are at high risk for another such episode. These findings are based on data from 10,061 workers employed by a Canadian resource company. Twelve per cent of these employees had a disability episode in 2005: two per cent for a mental health disorder and 10 per cent for a physical disorder. Compared with workers who had disability episodes related to a physical disorder, those with mental health disability episodes were more likely to be women, to have disrupted marriages or to be single. Rates of recidivism were high among those with mental health disability episodes. Workers with previous mental health disability episodes were almost seven times more likely than those without a previous episode to have a subsequent mental health disability episode. In contrast, those with previous disability episodes related to physical disorders were only twice as likely as those without a previous episode to have a subsequent physical disability episode. The fact that workers who were married were less likely to have a mental health disability episode than those with disrupted marriages suggests that ensuring a supportive work environment might help to protect workers against mental health disability.

Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, December 2009, v. 51 (12): 1394–1402. Carolyn S. Dewa et al., Work and Well-being Research and Evaluation Program, Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, Toronto, Ontario.