UK businesses may need to reconsider their employee benefits policies, as a new survey suggests that British employees are the most depressed workers in Europe, the Financial Times reports.
The Impact of Depression in the Workplace in Europe Audit (IDEA) survey by the European Depression Association, which interviewed more than 7,000 people across Europe, found that one in five workers are diagnosed with depression at some point and 10% of employees have taken time off work to deal with it.
However, the rates in the UK are higher than the average, reaching 26%. At the other end of the spectrum are the Italians, who are the least likely to be diagnosed with depression, as only 12% ever suffer from the condition.
When workers are diagnosed with depression, Germans are the most likely to take time off work (61%), followed by people in Denmark (60%) and in the UK (58%). By contrast, just one in four workers in Turkey say they are likely to take a break from work in such cases. European employees take 36 days off on average when faced with the condition, with the figure reaching 41 in Germany.
On the plus side, more than half of British managers say they have support from their human resource department when they have to deal with depression at the workplace. Still, employers believe there should be better counselling services provided, as a means to tackle the issue and reduce the impact of depression on business.
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