New research: common mental disorders, unemployment and psychosocial job quality

Is a poor job better than no job at all?

Employment is usually associated with health benefits over unemployment. However, an article published in Cambridge journal Psychological Medicine by a group of researchers from Australia and the UK has shown that having a job with poor psychosocial quality can be as bad for mental health as being unemployed.

Analysis of data from the English Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Survey considered the prevalence of common mental disorders such as anxiety and depression amongst 2603 respondents aged between 21 and 54 years who were either i) employed or ii) unemployed and looking for work at the time of interview in 2007. Quality of work was assessed by the number of adverse psychosocial job conditions reported (low control, high demands, insecurity, and low job esteem).

The analysis showed that there was no difference in the rates of common mental disorders between those who were unemployed and those who were in the poorest quality jobs. Both of these groups of individuals were more likely to experience a common mental disorder than those who were in high quality work.

Associate Professor Butterworth, lead author of the paper said, "While employment is thought to promote mental health and wellbeing, work of poor psychosocial quality is not associated with any better mental health than unemployment. Policy efforts to improve community mental health should consider psychosocial job quality in conjunction with efforts to increase employment rates."

Read the full paper "Common mental disorders, unemployment and psychosocial job quality: is a poor job better than no job at all?" here.

Psychological Medicine is a leading international journal in the fields of psychiatry, related aspects of psychology and basic sciences, published by Cambridge University Press.