title: Impact of social anxiety disorder on employment among women receiving welfare benefits.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Studies in clinical and community samples have documented that social anxiety disorder is common, disabling, and costly. It reduces educational attainment and job success, and thus it may undermine economic self-sufficiency. The authors examined whether social anxiety disorder was an obstacle to successful employment in a longitudinal epidemiological study of women receiving welfare in an urban Michigan county. The hypothesis that social anxiety disorder would predict reduced work attainment was examined.
  
  
  METHODS
  Psychiatric diagnoses were established with the Composite International Diagnostic Interview-Short Form. The authors conducted a linear fixed-effects regression analysis for survey data with 609 respondents who completed at least the third wave of the Women's Employment Study in order to explore obstacles to employment among mothers on welfare.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Analyses demonstrated that compared with respondents without social anxiety disorder, those with this disorder worked fewer months. The impact of social anxiety disorder was independent of and more striking than the effects of depression.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  By undermining efforts to obtain or maintain employment, social anxiety disorder poses a significant, unrecognized impediment to efforts to reduce welfare reliance and to help recipients achieve economic self-sufficiency. Because recipients may lose benefits if they fail to enter the workforce rapidly and if they exceed time limits for support, those with social anxiety disorder are at risk of extreme economic hardship. Improved access to effective treatments in this population could have significant public health and economic benefits.
authors.affiliation: University of Michigan School of Social Work, 1080 S. University Ave., Ann Arbor, MI 48104, USA. rtolman@umich.edu
authors.forename: Richard M
authors.initials: RM
authors.lastname: Tolman
authors.forename: Joseph
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Himle
authors.forename: Deborah
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Bybee
authors.forename: James L
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Abelson
authors.forename: Jody
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Hoffman
authors.forename: Michelle
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Van Etten-Lee
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001008:Anxiety Disorders; D004651:Employment; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007406:Interview, Psychological; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008824:Michigan; D012946:Social Welfare; D055815:Young Adult