Psychological distress is associated with a range of high-priority health conditions affecting working Australians.
BACKGROUND
Psychological distress is growing in prevalence in Australia. Comorbid psychological distress and/or depressive symptoms are often associated with poorer health, higher healthcare utilisation and decreased adherence to medical treatments.


METHODS
The Australian Work Outcomes Research Cost-benefit (WORC) study cross-sectional screening dataset was used to explore the association between psychological distress and a range of health conditions in a sample of approximately 78,000 working Australians. The study uses the World Health Organization Health and Productivity Questionnaire (HPQ), to identify self-reported health status. Within the HPQ is the Kessler 6 (K6), a six-item scale of psychological distress which strongly discriminates between those with and without a mental disorder. Potential confounders of age, sex, marital status, number of children, education level and annual income were included in multivariate logistic regression models.


RESULTS
Psychological distress was significantly associated with all investigated health conditions in both crude and adjusted estimates. The conditions with the strongest adjusted association were, in order from highest: drug and alcohol problems, fatigue, migraine, CVD, COPD, injury and obesity.


CONCLUSIONS
Psychological distress is strongly associated with all 14 health conditions or risk factors investigated in this study. Comorbid psychological distress is a growing public health issue affecting Australian workers.
Holden
Libby
L
School of Medicine, Griffith University, University Drive, Meadowbrook, QLD 4131. l.holden@griffith.edu.au
Scuffham
Paul
P
Hilton
Michael
M
Vecchio
Nerina
N
Whiteford
Harvey
H
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001315:Australia / Q000453:epidemiology; D015897:Comorbidity; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D003866:Depressive Disorder / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000523:psychology; D004526:Efficiency; D005260:Female; D006304:Health Status; D006801:Humans; D016015:Logistic Models; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D015995:Prevalence; D012307:Risk Factors; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000523:psychology; D055815:Young Adult