“I worked from 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. and at night I couldn't stop,” explains Carlota (not her real name. “It was an ordeal to go to work,” adds Irene. These two cases are common situations for many Spanish workers. , but they are not isolated. In the medical records of patients it is increasingly common to see diagnoses such as anxiety, stress or depression. In fact, the latter affects more than 300 million people and is the main global cause of disability to practice. job functions and usually extend over a long period of time. In Spain, in just under a decade, sick leave related to mental health has doubled.
As this newspaper has learned through the Transparency Portal, until October 466,078 Spanish workers received medical leave due to mental health problems. A figure that reached its maximum in 2022 with 515,679 temporary casualties. If we compare the number of sick leave due to mental and behavioral disorders in 2016 with the same period in 2022, we find the increase in these disabilities has a growth of 81.54%. While, compared to 2019 (the year before the covid-19 pandemic), the increase is 28.67%. “Although we see an increase in these casualties, we think they are underestimated,” denounces Ana García de la Torre, Secretary of Occupational Health of UGT.
According to data from the World Health Organization (WHO), it is estimated that 15% of working-age adults had a mental disorder and 5% of adults around the world suffer from depression. In Spain, anxiety and depression are the two main clinical conditions responsible for the disease burden of mental health problems. “Temporary disabilities related to this problem are the third longest and not enough attention is paid to them,” says Mariano Sanz, Secretary of Occupational Health and Environmental Sustainability of the Workers' Commissions (CCOO).
Globally, 12 billion days of work are lost due to anxiety and depression. “Mental health care at work reduces sick leave by 66%,” said the general director of the Health and People Foundation, Joan Piñol, at the end of last year. However, unions denounce that this problem is not dealt with adequately. “It is necessary to reform the list of occupational diseases,” warns García de la Torre. At this time, anxiety and stress problems are treated as common illnesses “and in many cases it is related to work and increasingly to the digitalization of the work environment,” says Sanz.
In 2010, the International Labor Organization (ILO) added mental disorders to its list of occupational diseases. In Spain, a report from the Ministry of Labor presented in early 2023 related to work. «A greater risk of depression is seen, especially in the case of women, in the most precarious employment situation and in the case of unemployment, with a gradient according to occupational social class. Among the active population there were a total of more than 511,000 cases of depression, with a population attributable risk of 33.2%, so it can be said that if the precarious population (including the unemployed) had had stable employment, they would have “we have been able to avoid almost 170,000 cases of depression,” stated the report Job insecurity and mental health. Knowledge and policies, coordinated by Pompeu Fabra Public Health professor Joan Benach.
Women and young people, the most affected
According to the data to which this newspaper has had access, Catalonia, Andalusia and the Valencian Community are the regions of Spain that accumulate the most casualties due to “mental disorders” throughout 2023. By sex, women are the workers who suffer the most. temporary disabilities according to data provided by the Ministry of Social Security.
By age groups, losses among young people have skyrocketed since the pandemic by more than 90% among employees aged 16 to 25, followed by those aged 26 to 35, with an increase of 48%. “Spain has a high prevalence of mental health problems in the population aged 15 years or older: 5.8% have anxiety and 5.3% have depression,” highlights García de la Torre.
Companies seem to be beginning to be aware of the importance of investing in mental health, both in the private sphere and in public institutions. Although, this should have a greater projection. According to a report by Adecco, 75% of the companies consulted express that issues related to workers' mental health should have greater treatment in collective agreements. “Indeed, it must be contemplated in the agreements and that does not currently happen except for honorable exceptions,” denounces Nel Anxelu, president of the Mental Health Confederation of Spain.
The unions consulted recognize that this issue appears more frequently in negotiations. “The agreement complements what the norm does not say,” says Sanz. “What must be demanded is the creation of a standard on this problem,” he adds.
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