Mental health problems among employees cost the EU economy €170 billion a year, according to researchers, with work stress and overwork being among the main reasons, the Czech National Institute of Mental Health (NUDZ) said in a press release today.
Stress contributes to about half of all missed days at work. Research from European institutions indicates that companies do not address mental health sufficiently, so an increased focus on prevention and support is required, said NUDZ spokesman Jan Cervenka, ahead of World Mental Health Day, celebrated on 10 October.
According to the researchers, 60% of the world’s population is working, and up to 15% of working-age adults have a mental illness. “Work stress is one of the key risk factors for mental health,” said NUDZ clinical psychologist Tomas Jelinek. “In 2022, 27% of workers in the EU suffered from stress, depression and anxiety.”
NUDZ director Petr Winkler said that although there are examples of good practice and policy in this area, as well as relatively reliable evidence on the effectiveness and economic benefits of mental health programmes at work, employers in the Czech Republic and Europe do not usually implement prevention programmes.
In some cases, once they become aware of the problems, for example due to suicide in the workplace, low productivity or high levels of burnout in top management, companies turn to shortcut solutions that don’t help. “This often happens under the influence of the ‘wellbeing industry’, which offers, even imposes, simple but expensive and dysfunctional solutions,” Winkler said. “National or international certification of employers promoting mental health would help, clearly distinguishing quality programs.”
This year, NUDZ will launch HARMONY (Healthy And Resilient Mindset with Organized, Nurturing digital tools for Your mental health), a project involving a consortium of institutions from eight European countries, intended to help improve knowledge and skills in preventing and raising awareness of mental health issues in the workplace.
“This is to be helped by collaboration between universities, training and qualifications providers, research institutions, occupational health and safety experts, service providers and other labour market actors,” Jelinek said.
Since 2023, NUDZ has been running a project to prevent mental health issues among the Czech adult population. Its aim is to provide organisations with guidance on how to map the mental health, well-being and satisfaction of staff, to offer possible solutions in the prevention of stress and burnout, and to provide first aid for the most common manifestations of mental health problems, such as depression, anxiety and alcohol abuse.
“An integral part of such programmes is the training of managers to improve their attitudes to open communication, and destigmatise the issue of mental health in the workplace,” said NUDZ coordinator of professional activities Slavomira Pukanova.
