More Work Stress, More Sick Leaves

A new study concerning workplace environments suggested that with more work stress, more sick leaves will be happening throughout the company. It’s important to underline the issue as most people have had stressful work days in their lives and are likely to experience them in the future as well.

The study gathered data from 12,000 Swedish employees over the course of five years and found that 8% of them took sick leaves due to mental health issues, among which 75% of them were women. While smoking was associated to being a significant factor in mental health sick leaves, alcohol was not.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warns that while most encounter work related stress during their lives, it’s vital not to overlook it.

They warn that it can affect both your mental state and ability of coping with life in general, which may even further delve into other aspects of your social interactions. Work relations are simply one of the few areas that may suffer in a stressful work environment.

Demanding jobs or jobs with high strain, and little effort for improving social support, have high risk for workers to take temporary departures due to mental health issues, such as stress. One example would be the stock market, where the competition is fierce even among employees of the same company.

Reports have shown that stress in stock brokers may lead to irrational decisions that would ultimately crash and might affected both the market and the client themselves. Both studies support that employers should keep an eye out and provide proper psychological support within the work environment.

According to the study’s authors, intervention in the workplace to prevent mental health sick leaves might also help in the long run with the employees’ health. Less will leave, but it will also improve their lifestyle and general tendency toward health related issues, such as heart problems, or the more concerning diabetes, which has been linked to stress in some instances.

Lead researcher, Lisa Mater of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, insists that the attention should be focus on providing better psychosocial work environments, especially by reducing the demands in straining jobs or perhaps finding a way to lower the tense competition among co-workers.

It is a vital aspect for the future, not only for the sake of their company, but most importantly for the future benefits of their employees’ lives.

Image source: theglobeandmail.com