Anxiety Increases Risk of Sick Leave At Work
People call in sick to work for many reasons. They may be hungover, burnt out, taking an impromptu road trip or even legitimately sick. But what about anxiety? New research pinpoints anxiety as a major reason for sick leave and absences at the workplace.
In a recent study appearing in the journal Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, researchers at the Norwegian Institute of Public Health, in collaboration with Australian and British institutes, examined over 13,000 participants for common mental disorders, including anxiety and depression.
Researchers followed up with the participants 6 years later and analyzed their sick leave of 16 days or more during that period.
The results indicated people with common mental disorders are more likely to experience prolonged absence from work (more than 90 days) and take multiple sick days. In fact, even after controlling for socioeconomic factors and physical health, people with anxiety appear to miss the most amount of days.
“Surprisingly, we found that anxiety alone is a stronger risk factor for prolonged and frequent sick leave than depression alone.” said lead author of the study Ann Kristin Knudsen.
She went on to say that anxiety appears to have long-term effects on sick leave as participants demonstrated an increased risk of absence up to six years later. This is the first study to show that anxiety and other mental disorders have a long-lasting effect on absence in the workplace.
According to the authors of the study, the implications for clinicians is that “further work is needed in understanding how health professionals dealing with sickness absence can best identify anxiety and other [depression] symptoms and prevent further prolongations or recurrence of any sickness absence episode.”
This research clearly demonstrates that anxiety and other mental disorders have far-reaching consequences in our lives affecting our cognitive, emotional, social and physical well-being.
Chris Nicoletti is a writer for an organization dedicated to helping kids overcome anxiety, GoZen.com, and a regular contributor to Mental Health News.