The cost of depression

A key aspect of the study is to use treatment services in their local community, which is economically practical and assists continuity.

Both groups are followed up after six weeks, thee, six, 12 and 18 months to track the clinical changes in depression symptoms and the employees’ performance at work. All contact with the employees is treated as highly confidential. It is very important that workers believe that they can speak freely with the psychologists without fear that their personal information will be accessible to their employer.

While the study is still in its early stages, it is already producing data from cross sectional analyses of the original health appraisal survey on depression prevalence rates, help-seeking behaviour and the economic burden of depression.

The WORC project has surveyed over 85,000 employees so far about physical and emotional health and work performance in terms of absenteeism and when present at work. The data from the K6 indicates a current depressive symptomatology prevalence rate of 6.7 per cent in full-time employees. Alarmingly, questionnaire data shows that 68 per cent of full-time employees with current depressive symptoms have not sought medical advice in the previous year. This equates to more than 303,000 employees in Australia who are struggling with a crippling illness who are not getting effective treatment.

Economic analyses shows that employees with depressive symptoms, not in treatment, are absent from work for 5.5 per cent of total working time which is 4.3 per cent more than their non-depressed counterparts. This equates to an annual wage loss of at least $1.5 billion due to absenteeism in Australia.

Moreover, employees with depressive symptoms have reduced ability to function at their usual level of capacity while at work. Project results suggest this represents a productivity decrement $2.8 billion a year. In total this is a staggering $4.3 billion in lost productivity each year due to undiagnosed depression.

When averaged across the nation’s workforce the annual cost of lost productivity per person with untreated depression symptoms is $9,665 per annum. Putting this in a context for employers’ consumption, it means that for each and every employee, depression is producing a loss of $647 per annum. Example, if you have 1,000 employees, estimated productivity loss would be approximately $647,000. It is important to note that these productivity losses are an “at least value”, they do not include additional losses due to WorkCover or insurance claims, part-time or casual employees, staff attrition or critical incidents.

Evidence to date suggests that undiagnosed depression is responsible for significant reductions in employee productivity; and this financial burden to organisations and corporate Australia may be alleviated by the early diagnosis and treatment of previously unidentified depressed individuals in the work force.