A person’s mental health can be just as negatively affected by a job with poor psychosocial quality as it is with unemployment.
The finding came from a team of experts from Australia and the UK and was published in Psychological Medicine. This research is significant because employment is typically linked to more health benefits than unemployment.
Associate Professor Butterworth, leading author, said, “Policy efforts to improve community mental health should consider psychosocial job quality in conjunction with efforts to increase employment rates.”
Butterworth concluded:
“The current results suggest that good quality work is associated with lower rates of psychiatric disorders. This provides policy makers, coordinators of workplace programs, and employers with a potential tool or leverage point for improving mental health in the community. The improvement of psychosocial work conditions, such as reducing job demands, and increasing job control, security, and esteem can flow on to improvements in employee’s mental health and reduce the burden of illness on public health systems.”