Employee assistance programs are usually pretty boring. For decades, employers have paid her EAP provider to run a phone line that employees can call if they need help with a personal matter. The idea is to provide short-term support (for example, a few counseling sessions) to help staff deal with minor problems before they become worse.
But this year, EAP found itself facing a wave of complex mental health issues brought on by people with no other recourse.
Bertrand Stern-Gillet, who runs Health Assured, the UK’s largest EAP provider with over 80,000 clients, said: However, he said that from concerns about protecting children and adults to people who “may be taking a significant amount of medication or standing on a bridge,” the “risks “high” calls occur on a daily basis. The company is hiring more staff and managers to cope with the increasing complexity of work and the intensity of emotions.
Andrew Kinder, director of mental health services at Optima Health, another EAP, held a bereavement webinar for one client’s employees. He expected about 40 attendees, but 1,200 logged on. “People were actually sharing a lot of their experiences about what they were going through,” he says.
The use of antidepressants is also increasing. In the UK in 2021/22, 8.3 million patients received at least one prescription for antidepressants, according to. NHS data — 22% increase over 2015/16.
what happened? On the positive side, people are more comfortable discussing their mental health and asking for help. “This is an undercurrent of need that we didn’t even talk about,” said Vicki Nash, policy director at mental health charity Mind, an improvement over the past. says.
But it’s clear that’s not all. The loneliness, worry, grief and financial troubles caused by Covid-19 and the lockdowns that have accompanied it seem to have damaged the mental health of people around the world.
Global prevalence of anxiety and depression increased by 25% in the first year of the pandemic. according to who. Young people are of particular concern in the UK. In 2017, one in her nine of her children aged 6 to her 16 had a possible mental disorder. By 2021, she’ll be six and he’ll be one. NHS data.
At the same time, mental health services in many countries have been disrupted by the pandemic and are suffering from increased demand. Waiting for treatment has become so common in the UK that in Greater Manchester, “waiting” Support those who are waiting. But the longer people have to wait, the worse they tend to get. Nash said people could be turned down because they weren’t sick enough to qualify for treatment and would have to wait until they were “dangerously ill.” .
In one study of the experiences of people on waiting lists, we interviewed women who: Come and cut me apart and ask for help. ”
Health Assured’s Stern-Gillett said some GPs “are more likely to get some support more quickly than the NHS route”, so patients are told to contact their EAP provider if they have access to it. says that
Moreover, the UK is currently facing severe inflation and the potential for recession. Low-income and insecure people are most vulnerable to a sharp drop in living standards. They also likely have poor mental health, a problem that often exacerbates each other.
Recent report A study by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation highlighted a striking association between antidepressant use and deprivation. In 2021/22, more than twice as many patients were prescribed antidepressants in the most deprived areas of England than in the least deprived areas.
The problem with relying on employers to provide mental health support during this time is that not everyone has access to such programs. People who don’t are less likely to have such a safety net.
They will need as much help as a money-constrained nation can. Some interventions, such as integrating talk therapy and debt advice, don’t have to be very expensive. Other policies that can help, such as government plans to reduce anxiety in the rental sector, are already being considered but need to be implemented.
When people are left to fend for themselves, more problems accumulate, both for people and for the economy as a whole. Already, a growing percentage of people say they are. unable to work due to illnessWhile people over the age of 50 are the biggest contributor to this trend, there is also concern about an increasing number of inactive young people. For them, mental illness, phobias and neurological disorders were the top causes of long-term illness, up 24% from 2019.
Economic problems have been difficult for people in the best of times and now is not the best of times. How well you handle this moment, or how you handle it, has implications for the future.
