On 8 February 2010, four workers at Café Vamp, a small restaurant in Melbourne Victoria, were fined a total of $A335,000 for repeatedly bullying, or allowing bullying to occur to, 19-year-old Brodie Panlock. Brodie jumped from a building in September 2006. Her family watched Brodie die from head injuries three days later. They were unaware that Brodie was being bullied at work.
Over the last couple of months, SafetyAtWorkBlog has written several articles on the psychosocial workplace hazard of depression, stress and anxiety.
Science Friday is a regular feature of the NPR program, Talk of the Nation in the United States. Last Friday, it focussed on depression. Its speakers talked about how the diagnosis of depression has changed over the decades, sometimes to match the range of depression medications available.
Importantly there is a differentiation between depression and mental health. (Psychosocial disorders doesn’t seem to be a term used outside of OHS) Depression is slowly becoming the collective term for sad, melancholy, unhappy, miserable, anxious………. It is very important for workplace safety professionals to try to pierce the fug of depression marketing so that one is not distracted into the trap of treating workers for a personal problem rather than preventing the hazard through changing organisational attitudes. Continue reading “Don’t get sidetracked by depression marketing”
On 24 January 2010, the Australian Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, encouraged all Australians to increase their “productivity growth“. But what if increased productivity could result in developing a mental disorder?
The February 2010 edition of the Harvard Mental Health Letter includes a report that lists the following key points:
- “Symptoms of mental health disorders may be different at work than in other situations.
- Although these disorders may cause absenteeism, the biggest impact is in lost productivity.
- Studies suggest that treatment improves work performance, but is not a quick fix.”
Will the Australian Government review its policy on mental health? Will the Prime Minister accept that productivity and mental health are both long term problems that need strategies that extend beyond his next term in office? Continue reading “Work harder? You must be mad”
If the prevention of depression is better than trying to treat it, how should a safety manager proceed when permissible work practices may be contributing to mental health problems in some workers?
A new UK study announced today says “that excessive internet use is associated with depression”. The researchers say that
“…some users have developed a compulsive internet habit, whereby they replace real-life social interaction with online chat rooms and social networking sites. The results suggest that this type of addictive surfing can have a serious impact on mental health.” Continue reading “Internet addiction in the workplace”
Jeff Sparrow recently gained considerable media attention with his book that reflected on violence in society. Yossi Berger once described occupational health and safety as a “kind of violence” in his book of that title. There is a lot of research into occupational violence, much of it from the United States which, to some extent, has an unrepresentative view of this hazard.
An interesting, and brief, discussion on the matter is a chapter in the book “Perspectives on Violent and Violent Death” published by Baywood Publishing. The existential perspective of one particular chapter may make it impractical for safety management purposes but as a background article for provoking thought, it is very good.
Without this chapter I would not have found the work of C E Newhill* into client violence in social work or that of C L Charles. Charles identified some factors that have contributed to the “anger epidemic” which may provide some clues on understanding occupational violence. These are listed below:
Depression as an occupational illness is one of the most difficult hazards faced by managers and safety professionals. Depression is hard to understand and it is often difficult to recognise an employee who suffers from the condition, let alone, figuring out how the workplace may contribute to the illness.
[Mental health issues are going to receive increased attention in Australia following the naming of the Australian of the Year, Professor Patrick McGorry.]
A recent article in Journal of Occupational & Environmental Medicine reports on a study that looked at “the relationship between antidepressant treatment and productivity costs”. Continue reading “Prevention of depression is better than treatment”
The Irish Times has reported on a speech made by Dr Jukka Takala, Director of EU-OSHA, in Spain in November 2009.
“[Dr Takala] said since the publication of a recent study showing a very high level of work-related suicides by French Telecom workers, there was an urgency about getting this information. “Personally, I favour a system such as they have in Japan where the families are compensated for the suicide of a relative, and the debate has already started in this organisation and in the commission and some of the member states,…”
It is not uncommon in OHS to hear calls for further research and more research on work-related suicide is definitely needed. (Australia has some very good work in this area.)
Caution has to be voiced on the risk that suicides be seen as the mental health version of workplace fatalities. Research and OHS statistics often focuses on fatalities for various reasons including that the statistics are easy to quantify. If a worker dies from being crushed by a machine, its a workplace fatality. There is a trap in terms of suicides where the cause and effect is not so clear, or mechanical.
Only recently have workplace fatalities begun to be investigated with consideration of the social or non-work contributing factors. If the machine operator was pulled into the machine because they were inattentive, why were they inattentive? In terms of suicides, the agency of injury will be fairly obvious but the contributory factors could be far more complex. And if the suicide victim has not left a note explaining the reasons for their action, it is even harder to determine “cause”.
Looking at suicides runs the risk of not paying enough attention to the mental health issues that have not reached the suicide level. The focus should not be researching suicides but researching the combination of issues leading to suicide. It is a much greater challenge but is likely to have more long term benefits.
Takala’s comments about family compensation and the need to acknowledge the reality of work-related suicides gained the attention of The Irish Times because they meet the imperatives for a newsworthy angle. Takal’s speeches at the Healthy Workplaces European Summit 2009 covered much greater territory than the Irish Times article and should be read to better understand the comment’s context.
There are hundreds of work risks that require assessment and psychosocial hazards is one of those areas. A full list of speakers at the conference is available by looking at the program. Abstracts of most presentations are available for download.