Essential to understand the relationship between mental illness and work

Abstract

In their paper "Nature and Prevalence of Mental Illness in the Workplace," Dewa et al. (2004) take on a task of enormous difficulty but of even greater importance. Generally, Dr. Dewa and her colleagues carry out this task extremely well. They define the principal dimensions of the problem clearly and summarize key frontiers of our knowledge. At the same time, as a good discussion paper should, they raise more questions than they answer. I will spend a very brief time commenting on the valuable questions this paper answers - and then devote more time to the questions it raises, questions I believe need to be addressed, and priorities I view as most pressing if we are to advance our understanding of mental illness in the workplace.