Bipolar Disorder in the Work Place

Both Forbes and BusinessWeek reported on a newly published study by Dr. Ronald Kessler in the September 2006 issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry (see Abstract).

Dr. Kessler and his colleagues concluded that employers should look at the cost of mood disorders like depression and bipolar disorder, and suggest additional studies to look at work place screening and treatment of depression and bipolar disorder. Dr. Kessler found that an employee with bipolar disorder on an average missed almost 66 work days per year, and an employee with depression on an average missed almost 28 work days per year. An employee with bipolar disorder had more missed work days because of the severity and persistence of the depressive episodes.

In the same issue of the medical journal, there was another study published looking at the effect of depression on work place performance. What was intriguing was a comparison between “absenteeism” (not at work) and “presenteeism” (at work, but performing poorly). Even when employees with depression begin to show some clinical symptom improvement, their work place performance could remain poor (read abstract).

Dr. Howard Goldman and Dr. Robert Drake wrote an editorial putting these two studies in perspective. Screening and treating depression and bipolar disorder should be of great interest to employers, because employee productivity has a direct impact on employers’ bottom line. However, these studies suggest that treatment may not completely reduce productivity loss in the work place. “Additional workplace interventions and specific rehabilitation efforts” are called for. What these interventions and rehabilitation approaches may be, however, remain to be proposed and implemented by employers.