Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-tf8b9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-02T20:24:18.128Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

three - Common mental health problems and work

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 September 2022

Sarah Vickerstaff
Affiliation:
University of Kent
Chris Phillipson
Affiliation:
University of Manchester
Ross Wilkie
Affiliation:
Keele University
Get access

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 Wellbeing
The Challenges of Managing Health at Work
, pp. 39 - 58
Publisher: Bristol University Press
Print publication year: 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×