A Stressful Work Environment May Increase Depression
A Finnish study has shown that a stressful work environment brought on by a lack of team spirit increases worker depression and the odds that employees will use antidepressants.
Marjo Sinokki, from the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health in Turku, Finland says “It is important to promoto well-being at work in every way and pay attention also to team climate.”
Sinokki’s research team collected data on 3,347 Finnish workers, aged 30 to 64 years old. They asked about team spirit and the quality of communication and also about how they felt about the demands of their jobs.
The participants were asked to rate their workplace according to four phrases:
- “encouraging and supportive of new ideas”
- “prejudiced and conservative”
- “nice and easy”
- “quarrelsome and disagreeing.”
They were also asked about their home and social lives.
The researchers found that of those who thought team spirit was poor, about 60% were more likely to report being depressed and 50% were more likely to take antidepressants than those who rated team spirit as high.
However, Dr. Carole Lieberman, a clinical professor of psychology and stress expert at the University of California, Los Angeles, has some issues with some aspects of the study.
She says, “Although I agree with their conclusion, that poor team climate or office stress is associated with depression, there are problems with this study. The study does not clarify to what degree office stress causes depression, versus to what degree depression causes office stress.”
Even given the criticism of this study, I would say that there is at least some merit to it. I have noticed that I am less happy when part of a negative work environment. I have also noticed that jobs with poor team spirit are more aggravating. This is something to think about if you are stressed out or depressed about your work. Unfortunately, it doesn’t offer any solutions, but awareness and a positive attitude couldn’t hurt.
Reference: MedLine Plus
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Sometimes just getting up from the chair can help you clear your mind. Also too much stress can cause erratic sleep patterns and you need to avoid getting into that hole.
The study does not clarify to what degree office stress causes depression, versus to what degree depression causes office stress.
I’d argue this is the real take home message. The causation (implied if it’s just implied) is just not justified by this work.
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I agree this study somewhat mixes cause with effect. Still the main point is valid, if nothing new
Stress causes depression .. I keep telling my boss that but he simply won’t listen and keeps pushing those deadlines ..
I read the full story. There is nothing new about the effect of stressful work environment on depression. However, this study include the effect of team spirit.
In the UK, one of the responsibilities of employers is the well-being of their employees, that’s include emotional well being.
If you only had fifteen minutes to take a break from a toxic or stressful work environment?
Take Japan for example, it has the most stressful workplace but does the productivity differ? Sure it’s a healthy competition but there are better ways to get the employees work at their best.
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Its not even a question that stressful work environments have been increasing depression percentages throughout the population of the world. A stressful day at work will still follow you home whenever you get off, thus possibly creating tension, stress, and problems throughout your home life.
The best way to solve this problem, which I try to tell people as often as I can, is to only work in an industry or position that you will absolutely love doing. Work needs to be a fun carefree and often entertaining environment to have minimum stress as possible.
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I agree with you, I think, it needs to change the work environment to reduce stressful work conditions.
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There are no doubts about it for me. Stress is the most harmful thing for our bodies and not only for those who are stressed at work. Also bad environment at home, school or any other frequently visited place could bring very negative reactions from our organisms.
You need to know when to take a break. Working too much is never good, even in a perfect environment. Besides these are Finnish studies, Finnish people are generally depressed.
I can imagine our work environment has a huge impact on our state of mind. People who have a lot of stress at work can easily loose their good mood and if it happens too often it is really easy to become depressed. We should remember that we spend over half of our day at work and the atmosphere there is very important.
Totally agree with this. I had to change my job on psychiatrist advice after suffering from depression. Results were almost instant.
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