Predictors of Employment Status for Persons with Bipolar Disorder

Abstract

Bipolar disorder is characterized by manic and depressive episodes and can be a lifetime condition. Bipolar disorder has been found to be associated with various types of disabilities, including low employment rate and high dependence on public aid. The purpose of this study is to identify factors related to being employed for persons with bipolar disorder. Nine thousand eight hundred and eighty-six subjects with bipolar disorder were collected between July of 2012 and November of 2013 and retrieved from Taiwan national disability database on May of 2014. The mean age of the sample is 45.41 (SD = 10.5), with 64% as female. Logistic regression was used to examine the log odds of the predictive variables on outcome of employment. A Receiver Operating Characteristics analysis was applied to locate the cutoff score of World Health Organization Disability Assessment Schedule 2.0 for being employed. All demographic variables were found to be significantly correlated with employment status among subjects. The Receiver Operating Characteristics results revealed that those subjects whose scores were below 33.57 had about a four-fold higher probability of being in employment than those whose scores were above 33.57. The result provides insights into future research effort and intervention design aimed at helping persons with bipolar disorder to obtain gainful employment.

Keywords: ICF; mental illness; vocational rehabilitation.

Figure 1

ROC analysis used to determine the optimal cut-off point for the WHODAS 2.0 score. Note: WHODAS 2.0 Score = 33.57; Area under Curve = 0.737; Sensitivity = 0.70; 1-Specificity = 0.33. Sensitivity/(1-Specificity) or LR+ = 2.12.