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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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Poverty, unemployment, and common mental disorders
— population based cohort study | | Author(s) | Scott Weich, Glyn Lewis |
| Journal title | British Medical Journal, vol 317, no 7151, 11 July 1998 |
| Pages | pp 115-119 |
| Keywords | Poverty ; Unemployment ; Mental disorder ; Demography ; Social surveys. |
| Annotation | The authors investigated whether poverty and unemployment increased the likelihood of onset of, or delayed recovery from episodes of common mental disorders, and tested whether these associations could be explained by greater subjective financial strain in people who were poor or unemployed. Participants aged 16-75 living in private households completed psychiatric assessments at interviews 12 months apart. Poverty and unemployment were associated with the maintenance but not onset of episodes of common mental disorders. Associations between poverty and employment and maintenance of common mental disorders, however, were much smaller than those of cross-sectional studies. Financial strain at baseline was independently associated with both onset and maintenance, even after adjusting for objective indices of standard of living. The authors conclude that poverty and unemployment increased the duration of episodes of common mental disorders, but not the likelihood of their onset. Financial strain was a better predictor of future psychiatric morbidity than either of these more objective risk factors, though the nature of this risk factor and its relation to poverty and unemployment remains unclear. (RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-980805008 A |
| Classmark | W6: WH6: E: S8: 3F * |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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