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Review
. 2015 Aug 18:11:2125-42.
doi: 10.2147/NDT.S83546. eCollection 2015.

Employment and the associated impact on quality of life in people diagnosed with schizophrenia

Clazien Bouwmans  1 , Caroline de Sonneville  1 , Cornelis L Mulder  2 , Leona Hakkaart-van Roijen  1
Affiliations
Review

Employment and the associated impact on quality of life in people diagnosed with schizophrenia

Clazien Bouwmans et al. Neuropsychiatr Dis Treat. .

Abstract

A systematic review was conducted to assess the employment rate of people with schizophrenia. Additionally, information from the selected studies concerning factors associated with employment and health-related quality of life (HRQoL) was examined. Employment rates ranged from 4% to 50.4%. The studies differed considerably in design, patient settings, and methods of recruitment. The most frequently reported factors associated with employment were negative and cognitive symptoms, age of onset, and duration and course of the disease. Individual characteristics associated with unemployment were older age, lower education, and sex (female). Additionally, environmental factors, eg, the availability of welfare benefits and vocational support programs, seemed to play a role. Generally, being employed was positively associated with HRQoL. However, the causal direction of this association remained unclear, as studies on the bidirectional relationship between employment and HRQoL were lacking.

Keywords: employment; environment; health-related quality of life; mental illness; patient characteristics; unemployment; work.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Flow chart of the literature search. Notes: Reasons for exclusion: 2= not performed in a Western country or Japan or Hong Kong; 3= people with schizophrenia not explicitly included; 4= no (un)employment rate described; 5= case study; 6= study on vocational rehabilitation therapy or vocational support programs; 7= duplicate sources; 8= full text publication unavailable; 9= studies including selective samples or convenience samples were excluded; 10= study sample had <100 subjects.
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