Days out of role due to common physical and mental conditions: results from the WHO World Mental Health surveys

• Published in: Molecular psychiatry Vol. 16; no. 12; pp. 1234 - 1246
• Main Authors: Alonso, J, Petukhova, M, Vilagut, G, Chatterji, S, Heeringa, S, Üstün, T B, Alhamzawi, A O, Viana, M C, Angermeyer, M, Bromet, E, Bruffaerts, R, de Girolamo, G, Florescu, S, Gureje, O, Haro, J M, Hinkov, H, Hu, C-y, Karam, E G, Kovess, V, Levinson, D, Medina-Mora, M E, Nakamura, Y, Ormel, J, Posada-Villa, J, Sagar, R, Scott, K M, Tsang, A, Williams, D R, Kessler, R C
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 01-12-2011; Nature Publishing Group
• Subjects: 692/1807/2781; 692/699/476; 692/700/478/174; Absenteeism; Adolescent; Adult; Aged; Behavioral Sciences; Biological and medical sciences; Biological Psychology; Care and treatment; Chronic Disease - epidemiology; Chronic Disease - psychology; Chronic illnesses; Clinical psychology; Comorbidity; Demographic aspects; Epidemiology; Female; Forecasts and trends; Global Health - statistics & numerical data; Health services; Health surveys; Health Surveys - statistics & numerical data; Hospitals; Humans; Influence; Male; Medical sciences; Medicine; Medicine & Public Health; Mental disorders; Mental Disorders - epidemiology; Mental Disorders - psychology; Mental health; Mental illness; Middle Aged; Miscellaneous; Neurosciences; Original; original-article; Pharmacotherapy; Prevalence; Psychiatry; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychopathology. Psychiatry; Public health; Social psychiatry. Ethnopsychiatry; Social status; World health; World Health Organization; Spain; Colombia; Romania; United States > US; Japan; India; New Zealand; Lebanon; Netherlands; Belgium; China; Brazil; Italy; Mexico; Israel; Iraq; Bulgaria; prevalence; productivity loss; burden of disease; chronic disease; disability; mental disorders; Social environment; Handicap; Human; Productivity; Prevalence; Chronic disease; Mental health; Epidemiology; Work disability; Disability; Health economy; Mental disorder; Public health; International; WHO; Burden of disease; Chronic Disease; Mental Disorders; Productivity loss
• ISSN: 1359-4184; 1476-5578; 1476-5578
• DOI: 10.1038/mp.2010.101

Days out of role because of health problems are a major source of lost human capital. We examined the relative importance of commonly occurring physical and mental disorders in accounting for days out of role in 24 countries that participated in the World Health Organization (WHO) World Mental Health (WMH) surveys. Face-to-face interviews were carried out with 62 971 respondents (72.0% pooled response rate). Presence of ten chronic physical disorders and nine mental disorders was assessed for each respondent along with information about the number of days in the past month each respondent reported being totally unable to work or carry out their other normal daily activities because of problems with either physical or mental health. Multiple regression analysis was used to estimate associations of specific conditions and comorbidities with days out of role, controlling by basic socio-demographics (age, gender, employment status and country). Overall, 12.8% of respondents had some day totally out of role, with a median of 51.1 a year. The strongest individual-level effects (days out of role per year) were associated with neurological disorders (17.4), bipolar disorder (17.3) and post-traumatic stress disorder (15.2). The strongest population-level effect was associated with pain conditions, which accounted for 21.5% of all days out of role (population attributable risk proportion). The 19 conditions accounted for 62.2% of all days out of role. Common health conditions, including mental disorders, make up a large proportion of the number of days out of role across a wide range of countries and should be addressed to substantially increase overall productivity.