Bipolar Disorder Exacts Twice Depression's Toll In Workplace

Their study is the first to distinguish the impact of depressive episodes due to bipolar disorder from those due to major depressive disorder on the workplace. It is based on one-year data from 3378 employed respondents to the National Co-morbidity Survey Replication, a nationally representative household survey of 9,282 U.S. adults, conducted in 2001-2003.

The researchers measured the persistence of the disorders by asking respondents how many days during the past year they experienced an episode of mood disorder. They judged the severity based on symptoms during a worst month. Lost work days due to absence or poor functioning on the job, combined with salary data, yielded an estimate of lost productivity due to the disorders.

Poor functioning while at work accounted for more lost days than absenteeism. Although only about 1 percent of workers have bipolar disorder in a year, compared to 6.4 percent with major depression, the researchers projected that bipolar disorder accounts for 96.2 million lost workdays and $14.1 billion in lost salary-equivalent productivity, compared to 225 million workdays and $36.6 billion for major depression annually in the United States.

About three-fourths of bipolar respondents had experienced depressive episodes over the past year, with about 63 percent also having agitated manic or hypomanic episodes. The bipolar-associated depressive episodes were much more persistent -- affecting 134-164 days -- compared to only 98 days for major depression. The bipolar-associated depressive episodes were also more severe. All measures of lost work performance were consistently higher among workers with bipolar disorder who had major depressive episodes than those who reported only manic or hypomanic episodes. The latter workers' lost performance was on a par with workers who had major depressive disorder.

"Major depressive episodes due to bipolar disorder are sometimes incorrectly treated as major depressive disorder," noted Wang. "Since antidepressants can trigger the onset of mania, workplace programs should first rule out the possibility that a depressive episode may be due to bipolar disorder."

Future effectiveness trials could gauge the return on investment for employers offering coordinated evaluations and treatment for both mood disorders, he said.

Also participating in the study were: Dr. Kathleen Merikangas, NIMH; Dr. Minnie Ames and Robert Jin, Harvard University; Dr. Howard Birnbaum, Paul Greenberg, Analysis Group Inc.; Dr. Robert Hirschfeld, University of Texas; Dr. Hagop Akiskal, University of California San Diego.

In a related NIMH-funded study in the same issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry, Drs. Debra Lerner, David Adler, and colleagues, Tufts University School of Medicine and Tufts-New England Medical Center, found that many aspects of job performance are impaired by depression and that the effects linger even after symptoms have improved.

The researchers tracked the job performance and productivity of 286 employed patients with depression and dysthymia, 93 with rheumatoid arthritis and 193 healthy controls recruited from primary care physician practices for 18 months. While job performance improved as depression symptoms waned, even "clinically improved" depressed patients performed worse than healthy controls on mental, interpersonal, time management, output and physical tasks. The arthritis patients showed greater impairment, compared to healthy controls, only for physical job demands.

Noting that 44 percent of the depressed patients were already taking antidepressants when they began the study and still met clinical criteria for depression -- and that job performance continued to suffer despite some clinical improvement -- the researchers recommended that the goal of depression treatment should be remission. They also suggest that health professionals pay more attention to recovery of work function and that workplace supports be developed, perhaps through employee assistance programs and worksite occupational health clinics, to help depressed patients better manage job demands.

Also participating in the study were: Dr. William Rogers, Dr. Hong Chang, Leueen Lapitsky, Tufts-New England Medical Center; Dr. Thomas McLaughlin, University of Massachusetts Medical School.

The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and John W. Alden Trust provided supplemental funding.

The Tufts-New England Medical Center General Clinical Research Center is funded by the NIH's National Center for Research Resources.