Psychological distress is associated with a range of high‐priority health conditions affecting working Australians |
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Authors: | Libby Holden Paul Scuffham Michael Hilton Nerina Vecchio Harvey Whiteford |
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Institution: | 1. Griffith University, Queensland;2. Queensland Centre for Mental Health Research, Queensland Health;3. School of Population Health, University of Queensland |
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Abstract: | Background: Psychological distress is growing in prevalence in Australia. Comorbid psychological distress and/or depressive symptoms are often associated with poorer health, higher healthcare utilisation and decreased adherence to medical treatments. Methods: The Australian Work Outcomes Research Cost‐benefit (WORC) study cross‐sectional screening dataset was used to explore the association between psychological distress and a range of health conditions in a sample of approximately 78,000 working Australians. The study uses the World Health Organization Health and Productivity Questionnaire (HPQ), to identify self‐reported health status. Within the HPQ is the Kessler 6 (K6), a six‐item scale of psychological distress which strongly discriminates between those with and without a mental disorder. Potential confounders of age, sex, marital status, number of children, education level and annual income were included in multivariate logistic regression models. Results: Psychological distress was significantly associated with all investigated health conditions in both crude and adjusted estimates. The conditions with the strongest adjusted association were, in order from highest: drug and alcohol problems, fatigue, migraine, CVD, COPD, injury and obesity. Conclusions: Psychological distress is strongly associated with all 14 health conditions or risk factors investigated in this study. Comorbid psychological distress is a growing public health issue affecting Australian workers. |
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Keywords: | psychological stress health conditions comorbidity public health |
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