More mental illness due to work stress

Stress and stress cause more absenteeism in the workplace

05/13/2013

Stress, pressure to work and constant availability cause more and more mental suffering for employees. This comes from a small evaluation of the statutory health insurance KKH. With the help of the in-house patient data, the health fund stopped an investigation. The mental illnesses are soon „the common diseases number one“, reports the cashier Ingo Kailuweit in the light of the study results.

Mental suffering on the way to widespread disease
An analysis of the cash register data revealed that mental illnesses among employees are increasing significantly. According to information from the Commercial Health Insurance Fund (KKH), sales representatives in the wholesale and retail trade were on average around 43.6 days absent due to mental health problems in the workplace last year. In health and social services, such as nurses in clinics or geriatric care facilities, employees were absent an average of 40.7 days in 2013. „Mental illnesses could become the common disease number one in a few years“, KKH chief Ingo Kailuweit told the newspaper „image“. „Pressure to succeed and constant accessibility are in the long run a danger for the health. We have to counteract with the employers.“

Permanent accessibility harmful to the psyche
Permanent availability by service phone and email is already standard in many industries today. The increase in mental illnesses such as depression are justified precisely because of this permanent work ethic. And regardless of the industries, as the Federal Statistical Office recently confirmed. According to the evaluation of the federal authority, about 59.1 percent of the employees stated that they were „have to work atypical time“. These include overtime, professional activities on weekends and on-call duty in continuous use.

The German trade union federation calculated that today in many work areas a massive work consolidation takes place. For example, around 63 percent of employees in Germany nowadays have more work to do in the same working hours than they did just a few years ago. More than 50 percent said they worked 45 hours a week and more. 72 percent even said they work 15 hours overtime per week on average.

Every eighth day of sickness due to mental illness
According to an analysis of the company health insurance funds (BKK), the increase in mental suffering continues continuously. „Every eighth day of illness is to be assigned to the mental disorders“, states in the study. In the previous year the injured were still on sick leave for 178 days, but one year later there were already 213 days per 100 members of the board. The sick leave due to mental illness also take the longest with 37 sick days. With men alone, sick days have increased by 20 percent compared to the same period of the previous year. For women, the increase was only insignificantly weaker at 18 percent. (Sb)