Mild stress increases chance of people reporting sick for work

Even mild stress can lead to people being unable to work, research suggests.

Mild stress increases by 70 per cent the chance somebody will be on disability payments for physical problems, and more than doubles the likelihood they will have a psychiatric condition.

The study, by experts at the University of Bristol and the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, was published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.

It found a “strong graded relationship between increasing levels of psychological distress and the likelihood of being awarded a new disability pension within five years”.

More than a quarter of disability pensions awarded to those in the Swedish study were for a physical problem linked to stress, while almost two-thirds of payments for a psychiatric problem were down to stress.

The authors said the link between stress and a diagnosis of a physical problem may be down to the way stress affects the body.

However, it could also be that stigma surrounding mental he-alth issues leads some doctors and patients to prefer a physical “label” for the problem.

The study involved more than 17,000 people aged 18 to 64.

During the course of the research, 649 people started receiving disability benefit – 203 for a mental health problem and the rest for physical ill health.

One in four benefits for physical illness, such as high blood pressure, angina and stroke, and almost two-thirds for mental illness, were attributable to stress.

The authors concluded: “Mild psychological distress may be associated with more long-term disability than previously ac-knowledged and its public health importance may be underestimated.”