Prevalence and correlates of psychological distress in a large and diverse public sector workforce: baseline results from Partnering Healthy@Work

BMC Public Health

Kristy Sanderson²  Brook Teale⁴  Roscoe Taylor³  Petr Otahal²  Alison Venn²  Angela Martin¹  Lisa Jarman² 

[1] Tasmanian School of Business and Economics, University of Tasmania, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia;Menzies Research Institute Tasmania, University of Tasmania, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia;Department of Health and Human Services, Tasmanian State Government, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia;Department of Premier and Cabinet, Tasmanian State Government, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia

关键词: Psychological distress;    Health risk appraisal;    Public sector;    K10;    Workplace;    Correlates;    Prevalence;   

Others  :  1161257
DOI  :  10.1186/1471-2458-14-125

 received in 2013-06-26, accepted in 2014-02-04,  发布年份 2014

【 摘 要 】

Background

Depressive and anxiety disorders are common among working adults and costly to employers and individuals. Mental health screening is often an important initial strategy, but the resultant data are often of unknown representativeness and difficult to interpret. In a public sector workforce, this study used a brief screener for depression/anxiety to: a) compare prevalence of high psychological distress obtained from a researcher survey with an employer survey and population norms and b) verify whether expected correlates were observed in a screening setting.

Methods

Participants were public servants working for an Australian state government. High psychological distress (Kessler-10 ≥22) stratified by age and sex was compared for a random weighted sample researcher survey (n = 3406) and an anonymous volunteer employer survey (n = 7715). Prevalence ratios (PR) were estimated from log binomial regression.

Results

Referencing the researcher survey, prevalence of high psychological distress was greater by age and sex in the employer survey but was only dependably higher for men when compared with population norms. Modelling suggested this may be due to work stress (effort-reward imbalance) (PR = 3.19, 95% CI 1.45-7.01) and casual/fixed-term employment (PR 2.64, 95% CI 1.26-5.56).

Conclusions

Depression and anxiety screening using typical employer survey methods could overestimate prevalence but expected correlates are observed in a screening setting. Guidance for employers on screening and interpretation should be provided to encourage engagement with mental health prevention and treatment programs in the workplace.

【 授权许可】

   
2014 Jarman et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.

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