Helping Employees Helps Employers, Too
Programs to aid depressed workers show a return on investment

(HealthDay News) -- Workplace programs designed to help depressed employees get proper treatment have been shown to improve not only their symptoms but their productivity as well.

Along with the toll in human suffering, depression costs the United States tens of billions of dollars a year, largely from lost productivity. Depression is one of the most costly health problems that employers face, according to a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association .

The study, which involved a workplace program that used a care manager to guide depressed employees through treatment, found that it yielded benefits for workers and employers alike.

It included 604 workers who had been diagnosed with depression and who were randomly assigned to participate in an intervention program or to continue with their usual care. The intervention program included telephone outreach and care management with a clinician who offered treatment guidance.

"The care manager conducted outreach with workers who were identified as being depressed, tried to educate them about what depression was and tried to encourage them to get treatment if the symptoms were serious and not resolving," lead author Dr. Philip S. Wang, director of the division of services and intervention research at the National Institute of Mental Health, told HealthDay . "When they got into treatment, the care manager tried to support them."

After a year, depression among workers in the intervention group was determined to be less severe than that of the others, and 26 percent of them were considered likely to recover, compared with 18 percent of the usual-care group.

People in the intervention group also worked an average of three hours more per week than did the others, equivalent to about two more weeks a year. Worker retention was 93 percent in the intervention group, compared with 88 percent in the usual-care group.

"Usually, health care benefits are viewed by the people who purchase them -- employers -- as just a cost. They assume that whatever cost they spend on workers' health, they won't see anything back," Wang said.

"One of the implications of our findings is that employers would actually see a return on their investment and may be better able to conceive of benefits to workers, particularly vis-à-vis depression, as a kind of opportunity," he said. "You put something in, and you will get something back. This is a different model from how employers view mental health care and health care in general."

Dr. Ewald Horwath, professor of psychiatry, epidemiology and public health at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, said the study's finding was "extremely significant, because it demonstrates that an intervention which improved access to care for depression not only improves outcome for depression but also work performance.

"What is not sometimes recognized is that depression is the second-leading cause of disability throughout the world," Horwath told HealthDay . "A study showing it can improve outcome in terms of work productivity and attendance is enormously important in terms of relieving people's suffering and potential productivity."

On the Web

To learn more about depression in the workplace, visit the Mental Health America Web site.

SOURCES: HealthDay News ; Philip S. Wang, M.D., Dr.P.H., director, Division of Services and Intervention Research, U.S. National Institute of Mental Health, Bethesda, Md.; Ewald Horwath, M.D., professor of psychiatry, epidemiology and public health and interim chairman, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, University of Miami Miller School of Medicine; Sept. 26, 2007, Journal of the American Medical Association
Author: Robert Preidt
Publication Date: Sept. 30, 2008
Copyright © 2008 ScoutNews, LLC. All rights reserved.