[Unemployment and mental health]

Abstract

Evidence linking unemployment with psychiatric morbidity is available since the thirties, but it is only in the seventies that a renewed research interest on this subject took place. Two research strategies seem to be emerging: an "ecological" approach establishing correlations between economical and health indicators for a given population. Another approach focuses on the psychiatric morbidity of samples of individuals who have lost their job compared to matched control groups of individuals still employed. Many of those studies did not limit themselves on the mental health of the unemployed but on the "rippling" effect of unemployment on the family and community. Many aspects of the consequences of unemployment on mental health remain to be explored such as the effects of long-term unemployment, unemployment among women. Methods of emotional supportive interventions for the unemployed need also to be explored. Furthermore the effects of a high level of unemployment on the programs of deinstitutionalization of the chronic mentally ill as well as the mentally handicapped should be evaluated.