Study: Offering Treatment for Depression to Employees is in Employers' Best Interests

A report out today from the National Institute of Mental Health shows that employees who are looking for treatment for depression and who took part in a program that had telephone outreach intervention as part of the treatment turned out to have fewer symptoms, they worked more hours and also had a greater job retention level than those who only received the usual care.

Depression costs tens of billions of dollars to the economy and it is due mostly to the loss of productivity in the work place. Comparing that cost of depression to the cost of other health problems to employers, depression is one of the most costly.

Employers who purchase corporate health policies very often to not add on the enhanced depression screening coverage, mainly because they are uncertain about what their return on their investment will be.

The researchers took a look at the impact that a depression outreach treatment program has on relieving the symptoms of depression, the level of job retention, absence due to sickness and whether or not there is any increased productivity.

They conducted a randomized controlled trial. There were 604 participants all of whom are covered by a managed behavioral health care plan. They were also classified by a 2 stage screening process as having significant depression

They were divided into two groups, one group of 304 was encouraged to enter outpatient treatment consisting of
psychotherapy and/or antidepressant medication. Those who did not want to enter treatment were offered an alternative of structured telephone cognitive behavioral psychotherapy. The other group of 300 received the traditional care.

The results showed that the measurements of depression were greatly lower in the group that received the intervention at both the 6 and 12 months levels and the patients in the intervention group were also had a higher level of recovery- 26.2% to 17.7%. They also scored higher in the hours worked category by 2 more hours a week than those in the traditional group. This equates out to being 2 more weeks of work a year. And because of this, they also had a higher rate of job retention - 92.6% to 88 %.