Mental health care for mentally ill employees. Part 1. Detection of Mental Disorders

Abstract

A mental health program was commenced in 1957 in an electric power company which has about 360 offices and 17,000 employees scattered throughout Kyushu (excluding Okinawa). During a period of 30 yr from 1957 to 1986, a total of 949 mentally ill employees sought consultation regarding various mental health problems. The mean annual number of new cases that sought consultation was 32, giving a rate of 0.19% of the number of employees as of the end of year. The rate increased with length of service and reached 4.4% of the initially employed number after 25-29 yr of service. In addition to cases of direct interview, indirect consultation was sought from family members and/or superiors of the employees. About one-half of this number later sought direct interview, but the remaining cases remained as latent cases in places of work. Psychiatric diagnoses of the subjects by interview included neurotic disorders, alcoholic mental disorders (alcoholic psychoses and dependence), schizophrenic psychoses, affective psychoses, personality disorders, epilepsy and other non-organic psychoses (reactive psychoses). © 1990, Japan Society for Occupational Health. All rights reserved.