Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of tables and figures
- List of abbreviations
- Notes on contributors
- Acknowledgements
- one Work, health and wellbeing: an introduction
- two Musculoskeletal disorders: challenges and opportunities
- three Common mental health problems and work
- four Comparing health and employment in England and the United States
- five Re-evaluating trends in the employment of disabled people in Britain
- six The current state of vocational rehabilitation services
- seven The changing profile of incapacity claimants
- eight Reconstructing the self and social identity: new interventions for returning long-term Incapacity Benefit recipients to work
- nine The fall of work stress and the rise of wellbeing
- ten ‘Work Ability’ : a practical model for improving the quality of work, health and wellbeing across the life-course?
- eleven Working for longer: self‑management of chronic health problems in the workplace
- twelve Case study: organisational change and employee health and wellbeing in the NHS
- thirteen Education and training in the workplace
- fourteen Conclusion: setting the agenda for future research
- Index
three - Common mental health problems and work
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 September 2022
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of tables and figures
- List of abbreviations
- Notes on contributors
- Acknowledgements
- one Work, health and wellbeing: an introduction
- two Musculoskeletal disorders: challenges and opportunities
- three Common mental health problems and work
- four Comparing health and employment in England and the United States
- five Re-evaluating trends in the employment of disabled people in Britain
- six The current state of vocational rehabilitation services
- seven The changing profile of incapacity claimants
- eight Reconstructing the self and social identity: new interventions for returning long-term Incapacity Benefit recipients to work
- nine The fall of work stress and the rise of wellbeing
- ten ‘Work Ability’ : a practical model for improving the quality of work, health and wellbeing across the life-course?
- eleven Working for longer: self‑management of chronic health problems in the workplace
- twelve Case study: organisational change and employee health and wellbeing in the NHS
- thirteen Education and training in the workplace
- fourteen Conclusion: setting the agenda for future research
- Index
Summary
Introduction
Recent years have seen significant policy attention focused on mental health and employment. The latter part of 2009 saw the publication of several key documents, including the first national strategy on mental health and employment (Health, Work and Wellbeing Directorate, 2009), an overarching framework for mental health service provision (HM Government, 2009a), a review of support for people not in employment due to mental health conditions (DWP, 2009), a strategy on employment support for people in contact with secondary mental health services (HM Government, 2009b) and public health guidelines for line managers on creating mentally healthy workplaces (NICE, 2009). Preceding these reports, Dame Carol Black's 2008 review of the health of the working-age population drew particular attention to the prevalence of mental ill health and its substantial impact on absenteeism and worklessness (Black, 2008; Lelliott et al, 2008).
This suite of publications covers a diverse range of economic and social concerns, from supporting the employment of people who experience severe mental health conditions, through reducing the incapacity benefits bill (the largest proportion of which is attributable to mental ill health), to the promotion of positive mental wellbeing among the whole workforce. In a chapter of this size it is only possible to focus on a few of these areas. The present discussion will concentrate on the retention of paid employment, rather than transitions into work from unemployment and the main focus will be on what are known as mild to moderate or common mental health problems. These terms are generally used to denote a range of anxiety conditions and less severe forms of depression that ‘cause marked emotional distress and interfere with daily function, but do not usually affect insight or cognition’ (Deverill and King, 2009, p 25). While not currently a diagnostic category in itself, work-related stress is often discussed in the same context. For example, Waddell and Burton (2006, p 22) state that stress ‘may be the best modern exemplar of common mental health problems’, while a report for the mental health charity Mind (Robertson, 2005, p 7) considers that ‘stress at work is now one of the most common forms of mental distress’.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Work, Health and WellbeingThe Challenges of Managing Health at Work, pp. 39 - 58Publisher: Bristol University PressPrint publication year: 2011