Mental Illness In The Workplace

Did you know one in four adult Americans have a form of mental illness. That is an alarming rate of 61.5 million Americans suffer from some type of mental illness, well according to the National Alliance of Mental Illness (NAMI) this is exactly the case. What does this mean in the workplace? While mental illness is higher in adults, how does this effect businesses, employers, and employees? Mental illness is the leading cause of employees being absent, according to the American Psychological Association, employee absents cost American employers one billion dollars in loss of productivity every year. While mental illness is continuing to rise, it shouldn’t be a reason for people to be unemployed. Understanding what mental illness actually
This disorder doesn’t allow them to understand reality, people with schizophrenia live in an unrealistic world mentally, because they interpret the world unrealistically. People who suffer from such a severe condition often are shut-ins and are on high doses of medication and are under intensive psychiatric care. Schizophrenia is a mental illness that the cause is still unknown, doctors often think it could be a chemical imbalance in the brain, or the environment, but it’s not for certain. Eating disorders such as bulimia, anorexia, and binge-eating disorder usually coexists with depression according to the National Alliance on Mental Health. All these eating disorders either mean that a person is depriving themselves of food, due to the obsession of their personal body image. The long term effects of eating disorders are severe on the body and mind, and can either add to depression or anxiety and can also contribute to long term health
Depression, anxiety, and bipolar disorder all come with loss of productivity due to the side effects these mental illnesses have, such as chronic pain, lack of concentration, lack of motivation, fatigue, and migraines. Depression alone results in 400 million work day absences a year, and the annual indirect costs per employee equal $4426 for someone with major depressive disorder and $9619 for bipolar disorder (Innerworkings, 2007, p.8). If you have 20 employees and one in every 4 people have one of these mental illnesses, that’s five employees, as an indirect cost to the employer 22,130.00 a year, for just five employees with depression.
How do we fix the problem? Education on mental illness, if you’re an employer it is important for you to be able to set up some type of a program to help your employee. If you’re an employee, it is important for you to be aware of signs, symptoms, and take advantage of the help that is offered maybe not just through an employer but through your health insurance, or through different local organizations in your