Mental Health Problems

Following several articles regarding creating a healthy environment at the workplace - including the new Employment and Industrial Relations Act and the new Health and Safety Act, Commercial Services Bureau has now been targeting problems employees may face at their workplaces. These articles focused on how these employees, their colleagues and even their employers can help these people overcome their problems.

Health and safety at the workplace is not simply the wearing of gloves, helmets and other protective gear. Health and safety at the workplace also has to do with the problems we all encounter in our daily lives: at work, at home or in the interface between the two.

According to the World Health Organisation, 'health' incorporates several aspects of the human being: it includes our physical, social, spiritual as well as mental well-being. 'Mental' is a word that is usually seen in the negative sense. However, mental health is just as important as physical health. If we want to grow and flourish in order to contribute individually and collectively to our society, we need to accept and understand that we are 'mental' beings with emotional and spiritual needs, as well as physical ones.

Mental health problems can affect anyone - the rich or the poor, the young or the old - shattering the lives of those affected and also the lives of the people close to them. These problems have personal, social and financial consequences for everyone.

The working population spends more time at work than any other place during the day - at least eight hours at work, eight hours asleep and another eight hours doing other things which are normally done during the day such as looking after children and other responsibilities life brings about.

Mental ill health or distress is a major cause of sickness, which results in absence from work, reduced productivity and increased staff turnover. Stress is the root cause of a great deal of mental ill health, especially anxiety and depression.

According to the United Kingdom's government statistics, work-related stress is estimated to be the biggest occupational health problem in the UK. This follows musculo-skeletal disorders such as back problems, neck aches, headaches and others.

It is estimated that three in every ten employees will experience mental health problems in any one year with a great percentage of it being related to anxiety and depressive disorders. All in all in the UK, mental health problems account for the loss of over 91 million working days each year - half of these are due to anxiety and stress. One has to note that the working population in the UK is around 25 million.

The Richmond Foundation

The Richmond Foundation is a non-governmental organisation that specialises in mental health. It receives part of its funding from the government and the rest is collected through fund-raising activities.

The foundation was founded in 1993 and is a non-profit making organisation. Chief executive officer Doris Gauci explained that whilst the foundation helps persons with mental health problems by providing community-based rehabilitation facilities and support services, it also provides services that will prevent mental health problems in the workplace from developing.

Ms Gauci said that while other services provided by the Richmond Foundation focus upon supporting persons with mental health problems, the Staff and Organisation Support Programme aims to provide a service which will help to prevent mental illness from occurring, as well as to support organisations to provide a working environment which promotes positive mental health.

She said the foundation identifies possible sources of stress within an organisation, provides training and promotes the best practices to prevent stress throughout the organisation and in the individual employees, maximising their well being. The foundation also provides counselling and support services to employees enabling them to resolve problems whilst maintaining their functioning at work, maximising their productivity and minimising unnecessary burnout and staff turnover. She emphasised that if employers have their employees' well-being at heart, they would provide their staff with a confidential service to which they can turn in times of distress, for whichever type of difficulty.

What is Good Mental Health?

Good mental health is not just the absence of mental health problems. Individuals with good mental health develop emotionally, creatively, intellectually and spiritually; they initiate, develop and sustain mutually satisfying personal relationships and are confident and assertive. People with good mental health face problems, resolve them and learn from them; they are aware of others and empathise with them; they use and enjoy solitude; they play and have fun and laugh, both at themselves and at the world.

A person who is mentally healthy feels loved and is capable of loving others, has important relationships and feels supported by them. These people are productive at work and at home and have leisure activities.

Having said this, mental health also entails being in touch with one's vulnerabilities and limitations and realising when one needs to reach out for support and professional help.

How Can a Mental Health Problem be Defined?

The term 'mental health problem' covers a very wide spectrum, from the worries and grief we all experience as part of everyday life, to the most bleak, suicidal depression or completely losing touch with everyday reality.

A mental health problem only becomes a serious problem when it interferes with someone's ability to cope or function on a day-to-day basis or when someone's behaviour becomes a concern for others.

The more extreme forms of mental distress can be very disturbing both for the person experiencing the mental health problem as well as those around them. However, while mental distress can lead to considerable disruption and difficulty in people's lives, many have found ways of managing their problems and are able to lead fulfilling and active lives.

According to the World Health Organisation, 'health' is a state of complete well-being: physical, psychological, spiritual and social. Health is not merely the absence of illness. When someone experiences severe and or enduring mental health problems they are sometimes described as 'mentally ill'. However, there are certain difficulties with this term.

There is no universally agreed cut-off point between normal behaviour and that described as 'mental illness'. What is considered abnormal behaviour or an abnormal reaction to circumstances differs between cultures, social groups within the same culture, and even different social situations.

The label 'mental illness' is highly stigmatising, Ms Gauci explained. It encourages people to think of 'the mentally ill' as an entirely separate category from 'people like us', rather than as ordinary people who have, for whatever reason, more severe emotional difficulties to cope with. Popular misconceptions depict 'the mentally ill' as violent and dangerous. These stereotypes are contradicted by ordinary people's experiences of mental health problems affecting themselves, their family members, friends or colleagues.

But what is the cost of mental ill-health? Mental ill-health among the workforce results in a substantial cost for Maltese firms. There are many other 'hidden' costs in addition to those of sickness absence. Ineffective working and poor interpersonal relations can substantially reduce productivity. Moreover, increased staff turnover necessitates recruitment and re-training costs.

What is Stress?

Stress is a necessary part of everyday life. Indeed, some degree of stress or pressure is considered as healthy. Underemployment can lead to boredom and a loss of energy and motivation. But on the other hand, excessive stress can lead to fatigue, impaired judgement and decision-making, exhaustion and the beginning of serious health problems, which can be both mental and physical. Physically, stress is implicated in the development of coronary heart disease, certain types of cancer and a host of other ailments such as stomach ulcers, skin rashes, migraine, asthma and increased susceptibility to infections. The psychological effect of stress can be just as bad. Increased anxiety, irritability, disturbed sleep; poor concentration and aggressive behaviour can increase the risk of accidents and disrupt relationships both at work as well as home. Individuals under stress are often inclined to smoke more, drink more alcohol and consume excessive amounts of caffeine, thus increasing irritability, sleep impairment and so on. Exposure to prolonged periods of stress will increase the risk of serious health problems including depression and disabling anxiety conditions, as well as alcohol misuse.

Where does it come from? Stress is a relative issue. It depends on several factors including personality, life experience, background and so on. Stress tends to build up over a period of time through the combination of circumstances. Problems at home, such as marital difficulties, child-care problems or money worries can all contribute to reducing a person's ability to cope with the stress created at the workplace.

How Susceptible Are We?

How many people experience mental health problems? Anyone can experience a mental health problem, Ms Gauci explains. On average, one in four of us will experience a mental health problem in the course of a year. One in every four women and one in every six men suffer from depression. One in every 100 people suffers from some form of schizophrenia, whilst one in every 100 suffers from manic-depressive psychosis.

Ms Gauci said these problems could cause real and lasting damage, both to the individual and to the community. Fortunately the majority of people who experience mental health problems can get over them or learn to live with them especially if they get help early on.

Unfortunately, many people experiencing a mental health problem don't receive the right kind of help and some don't receive any help at all. In fact, many people with mental health problems are shunned or discriminated against by their families, friends and the professionals who are supposed to be caring for them. This is what the Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) offered by the Richmond Foundation is all about: getting the right, professional help from the people who know most about these problems.

The EAP

Ms Gauci said the EAP started off in the United States and Canada initially to deal with alcohol and drug abuse problems. However, as time went by, the programme was extended to help employees with the problems they might face both in the workplace and at home.

She said the Richmond Foundation approaches firms in order to offer its services to their workforce. In the long term, it turns out to be much cheaper for an employer to provide this service for his employees because the productivity will increase and the environment at the workplace is much better for people to work in. Moreover, Ms Gauci explained, by allowing the foundation to make the service available to its employees, the firm is also extending its social responsibility - not only caring for employees while they are at work, but also providing support in their private lives after they would have left the workplace.

Some firms, she said, offer this programme through the Human Resources Department. However, this will not work as effectively as it were offered by an external organisation, on a totally confidential basis. Ms Gauci said that depression and stress are the most common mental health problems the foundation's personnel meet with during the course of their work.

She said the foundation's personnel meet with all the company's employees in order to provide them with information about the service. These employees are then given the foundation's contact number just in case any of them wants to follow the programme. None of the other employees or the company's management will know that the employee is following the programme as appointments are given after office hours. Moreover, the foundation takes extra care so as not to overlap appointments of employees working at the same workplace.

Some Tips

In order to help ourselves from developing mental ill health, psychologists suggest a number of ways to achieve this including:

Making time to do the things we enjoy most

Cutting down on coffee, alcohol, smoking and other addictive substances

Doing physical exercise

Keeping thing in perspective

Developing and sustaining friendships

Listening to and respecting people, even if we don't agree on certain things

Asking for help if we feel distressed

The Richmond Foundation may be contacted on 2144 5551 for further information regarding the Employee Assistance Programme. The line is also open for companies wishing to introduce this service for the benefit of their employees and also their businesses.

Article prepared by Commercial Services Bureau (CSB) Ltd.

Since 1987, CSB Ltd. has been servicing the local and international business community with its range of employment/recruitment related services. It has helped thousands of employees improve their job conditions and careers, and employers obtain the ideal staff for their organisations.