Mental health: more than one in five assets at risk

More than one in five French people is at risk of work-related mental illness, according to a recent study.

An Ipsos epidemiological study conducted for the Pierre Deniker Foundation for Research and Prevention in Mental Health, published Monday, November 26, reveals that more than one in five badets (22%) is in a situation of "Distress to a mental disorder". The authors of the study, who stress that it is not a matter of alerting on a "simple" suffering at work but of a real risk of seeing a pathology requiring a medical care, plead "For an evaluation and prevention policy".

Robotic portrait of the worker in psychical danger

To establish an inventory of the risks of mental disorders of French workers, the researchers badyzed forty-four psychosocial risk factors, such as the balance between the demands of work and its gratifications, autonomy and room for maneuver, quality of human relations between colleagues and with the hierarchy, conflicts of values, socio-economic insecurity … They put them in relation with the various profiles of the people questioned (age, gender, social status, state of health, conditions of work, geographical location, etc.) and with some signs of failure (physical symptoms, anxiety and insomnia, social dysfunction and depression). From this work, it appears that the greatest threat to the mental health of workers is the failure to reconcile private and professional life. This situation concerns 15% of the badets surveyed and "45% of them have a distress leading to a mental disorder, compared to 18% for those who do not have this difficulty"says the foundation. The results of the study also point to a higher risk of mental illness in women (26%) than in men (19%). Prevalence is also higher among those working more than 50 hours a week (35%), those without a fixed office (33%, compared with 22%), people with annual incomes of less than 15,000 euros (30%), those who spend more than one and a half hours in transport (28%, compared with 21% among those with shorter travel times) and in helping caregivers of people with disabilities or with a loss of autonomy (28% versus 19%). for those who do not have this responsibility).

Rise of psychic pathologies

The study identified aggravating factors: work overload (24% of badets claiming to have to deal with a lot of complex information are in distress), physical organization of the workspace, loss of control of time and accumulation of private concerns and professional. "Work-related mental illnesses are constantly increasing", say the authors of the study. This concern is confirmed by the figures published by the Health Insurance in a report of January 2018. The National Health Insurance Fund (CNAM), also alarmed by a sharp increase, reported for the year 2016, more than 10,000 cases of mental illnesses (depression, anxiety disorders and post-traumatic stress disorder) recognized as occupational accidents.