Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jkksz Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T00:34:04.688Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Minor psychiatric morbidity in employed men and women and its contribution to sickness absence

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 July 2009

Rachel Jenkins*
Affiliation:
General Practice Research Unit, Institute of Psychiatry, London
*
1Address for correspondence: Dr Rachel Jenkins, General Practice Research Unit, Institute of Psychiatry, De Crespigny Park, Denmark Hill, London SE5 8AF.

Synopsis

A pilot study is described on 41 men and women of similar age, social and educational backgrounds, in 2 working environments. The use of psychiatric interviews in such occupational settings is demonstrated to be acceptable to both management and employees. Preliminary coefficients of validity for the General Health Questionnaire are found to compare favourably with those in clinical or community settings. Though the prevalence of minor psychiatric morbidity in these small samples did not differ between the sexes, the women had twice as many spells of absence as the men. Considering women separately, minor psychiatric morbidity was found to be significantly correlated with absence. However, psychiatric illness was a less important predictor of absence in men.

Type
Preliminary Communication
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1980

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.)

References

REFERENCES

Chadwick, Jones J. K., Brown, C. A. & Nicholson, N. (1973). Absence from work: its meaning, measurement and control. International Review of Applied Psychology 22, 137155.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Comstock, G. W. & Helsing, K. J. (1976). Symptoms of depression in two communities. Psychological Medicine 6,551563.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Department of Health and Social Security (1977). Sickness and Invalidity Benefit Statistics for 7 June 1976 to 4 June 1977. Office of Health Economics: London.Google Scholar
Dohrenwend, B. P. & Dohrenwend, B. S. (1976). Sex differences and psychiatric disorders. American Journal of Sociology 81, 14471454.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Field, L. W., Ewing, R. T. & Mayne, D. W. (1957). Observations on the relation of psychosocial factors to psychiatric illness among coal miners. International Journal of Social Psychiatry 3 (2), 133145.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Finlay-Jones, R. A. & Burvill, P. W. (1977). The prevalence of minor psychiatric morbidity in the community. Psychological Medicine 7, 475489.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fraser, R. (1947). The Incidence of Neurosis Among Factory Workers. Industrial Health Research Board Report No. 90. HMSO: London.Google Scholar
Gardiner, A. Q., Peterson, J. & Hall, D. H. (1974). A survey of general practitioners' referrals to a psychiatric outpatient service. British Journal of Psychiatry 124, 536541.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goldberg, D. P. (1978). Manual of the General Health Questionnaire. National Foundation for Educational Research: Windsor.Google Scholar
Goldberg, D. P., Cooper, B., Eastwood, M., Kedward, H. & Shepherd, M. (1970). A psychiatric interview suitable for use in community surveys. British Journal of Social and Preventive Medicine 24, 1826.Google Scholar
Gove, W. R. (1972). The relationship between sex roles, marital status and mental illness. Social Forces 51, 3444.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gove, W. R. & Geerken, M. R. (1977). The effect of children and employment on the mental health of married men and women. Social Forces 56, 6676.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haavio, Mannila E. (1976). Ecological and sex differences in the hospitalization of mental illness in Finland and Sweden. Social Science and Medicine 10, 7782.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Health and Personal Social Service Statistics (1977). HMSO: London.Google Scholar
Howell, R. W. & Crown, S. (1971). Sickness absence levels and personality inventory scores. British Journal of Industrial Medicine 28, 126130.Google ScholarPubMed
Johnstone, A. & Goldberg, D. P. (1976). Psychiatric screening in general practice. Lancet i, 605608.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kornhauser, A. (1965). Mental Health of the Industrial Worker. Wiley: New York.Google Scholar
Mechanic, D. (1966). Response factors in illness: the study of illness behaviour. Social Psychiatry 1, 1120.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morris, J. N. (1965). Sickness absence: return to work? Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine 58,821825.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Murphy, H. B. M. (1973). The decline of industrial society. Psychological Medicine 3, 405410.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nathanson, C. A. (1977). Sex, illness and medical care: a review of data theory and method. Social Science and Medicine 11, 1325.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Nelder, J. A. & Wedderburn, R. W. M. (1972). Generalized linear models. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society A 135, 370384.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Office of Health Economics (1971). Off Sick. OHE: London.Google Scholar
Rosen, B. M., Locke, B. Z., Goldberg, I. D. & Babigian, H. M. (1970). Identifying emotional disturbance in persons seen in industrial dispensaries. Mental Hygiene 54 (2), 271279.Google ScholarPubMed
Schnabl, S. (1966). Der Einfluss von Lebensalter, Geschlecht und Beruf auf die Symptomatik funktioneller Erkrankungen. (The influence of age, sex and occupation on the symptomatology of functional disease.) Psychiatrie, Neurologie and Medizinische Psychologie (Leipzig) 18 (4), 158164.Google Scholar
Shepherd, M., Cooper, B., Brown, A. C. & Kalton, G. W. (1966). Psychiatric Illness in General Practice. Oxford University Press: London.Google Scholar
Social Trends, Vol. 9 (1979). Central Statistical Office. HMSO: London.Google Scholar
Tarnopolsky, A., Hand, D. J., McLean, E. K., Roberts, H. & Wiggins, R. D. (1979). Validity and uses of a screening questionnaire (GHQ) in the community. British Journal of Psychiatry 134, 508515.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wall, T. D., Clegg, C. W. & Jackson, P. R. (1978). An evaluation of the job charateristics model. Journal of Occupational Psychology 52, 183196.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weissman, M. M. & Klernian, G. L. (1977). Sex differences in the epidemiology of depression. Archives of General Psychiatry 34. 98111.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed