Even after receiving treatment with antidepressants, depressed workers costs employers more in short-term disability and absenteeism, says a report in the February Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine.
Suellen Curkendall of Thomson Reuters Healthcare and her team of researchers used insurance claims and employee health and productivity databases to examine the relationship between antidepressant treatment and productivity costs.
What they found in their study was that depressed employees are about twice as likely to use short-term disability leave, compared to workers who were not depressed. Those workers with severe depression were three times as likely.
Deficits in productivity were significant, according to the report, with short-term disability costs of about $1,000 for each depressed worker and $1,700 for each severely depressed worker. These costs were, in fact, much higher than for other common illnesses such as high blood pressure, diabetes and rheumatoid arthritis.
Curkendall’s team also found that workers with depression missed more work days, even after treatment with antidepressants.
The authors conclude their report by stating that these productivity losses probably occur due depression symptoms that persist despite treatment and suggest that “therapies that can better manage depression may provide opportunities for savings to employers.”
From Depression Blog