Study reveals mental health toll of workplace injury

New research shows physical injuries sustained in the workplace have greater impacts on patients’ mental health when compared to injuries occurring outside the workplace.
 
The study found this is the case even when those in employment have better baseline mental health.
 
Australian and Canadian researchers published their findings this month, analysing Canadian workplace injury data, comparing 7556 individuals with severe workplace injuries with 28,902 people who sustained similar injuries outside work.
 
The research concludes that sustaining an injury in the workplace, and possibly the associated processes for injury claims and compensation, may itself have specific negative impacts on mental health and wellbeing.
 
With these injuries commonplace in general practice, Chair of RACGP Specific Interests Psychological Medicine Dr Cathy Andronis told newsGP the workplace has unique qualities which may explain why work-related injury carries a greater risk of psychological harm.
 
‘For many people the workplace feels like a family for them and so injuries and their consequences feel personal and affect their relationship with both colleagues and managers as well as their identity,’ she said.
 
‘Grief is common with any injury but frequently not acknowledged. 
 
‘Any type of trauma, physical, psychological or social can precipitate and perpetuate mental illness in patients. We often underestimate how much any disease, acute or chronic, has psychological symptoms.’
 
Globally an estimated one in five deaths are caused by injuries in the workplace and a third of disability adjusted life years are related to workplace injuries.
 
In Australia, 3.5% of workers say they have experienced an injury in the last 12 months, with these injuries costing the economy around $28.6 billion each year.
 
The highest frequency of serious claims comes from those working in agriculture (11.3%), followed by those in forestry and fishing (9.9%), and public administration and safety, transport, postal and warehousing, manufacturing (9.1%).
 
Physical injuries are known to lead to associated impairment in mental health, with depression, anxiety, substance abuse and suicidality all strongly associated with physical injury.
 
These mental health challenges can be further prolonged by length of time off work, gender and socioeconomic status, and having to return to work at the site of the injury.
 
Dr Andronis said although the Australian WorkCover system includes mental health care ‘there is pressure to limit access for chronic issues’.
 
In the wake of the study’s findings, she is encouraging GPs to be proactive in recognising and managing psychological impacts of physical disease.
 
‘GPs should always take a holistic biopsychosocial approach to any injury and actively assess the mental health status of patients,’ she said.
 
‘Earlier intervention and psycho education [about] their emotional response to their physical injury and their fears about losing capacity to work, financial implications and effects of the injury on their relationships and their self-esteem.’
 
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