Black plague of 21st century

You're irritable and restless - sometimes impulsive - at work. You fidget through meetings, lose track of appointments and jump at the sound of a mobile phone. Sometimes you wonder if you are becoming overwhelmed by the stress of your job.

Is there something wrong with you? Or is there something wrong with the modern work culture?

Attention deficit trait (ADT) is a newly recognised workplace disorder caused by the pressure of modern office life. When the pressure gets too great, fear takes over as the driving force, and the result, it's suggested, can be ADT, a perpetual state of low-level panic, guilt and fear, with difficulty in organising, setting priorities and managing time.

As many as one in three employees, especially managers, may have some symptoms of the disorder, but it's claimed whole organisations can be engulfed by it, leading to widespread depression, anxiety and a host of other complications.

"It's a response to the hyperkinetic environment in which we live," says psychiatrist Dr Edward Hallowell. "But it has become epidemic in today's organisations."

ADT joins a growing list of workplace health problems that now include stress, anxiety, burnout, bullying, workaholism, alcoholism and post-traumatic stress. With one in five managers at risk of depression, 12 per cent of them having a major depression.

New research shows how mental health problems have become one of today's biggest occupational health risks. In six years, the number of mental illness problems being seen by occupational physicians has trebled in Britain, while physical causes have stayed at about the same rate. The physicians are seeing three times as many new cases of people with stress and mental illness as they were six years ago - 36.7 per cent compared with 11.4 per cent.

The research, at Manchester University and Imperial College is based on reports from more than 500 occupational physicians, the doctors who examine sick employees, and shows that rates for men were 25 per cent higher than those for women, and that six out of 10 diagnoses were for anxiety or depression. The research also gives a unique insight into who is most at risk from which disorders. It shows that around one in four bouts of mental ill-health are blamed on the job itself, with work overload the main cause.

Changes at work, including new responsibilities and new technology, accounted for one in 10 cases, while problems in relationships with colleagues were to blame for almost one in five health problems among women employees. The results also show that illness rates, especially anxiety and depression, were higher than expected among managers, secretaries and clerks, and people employed in the financial industry and in education. Alcohol problems were high among those working in sales, while post-traumatic stress was higher among machine operators and train drivers.

Not all sick workers are seen by occupational physicians, and the majority are treated by GPs.

The researchers say doctors needed to be trained to spot early signs of problems at work if mental ill-health is to be reduced. They also say that greater expertise is needed to improve the workplace environment, including reviewing job demands, and improving working relations and organisational change.

Dr Hallowell, who runs the Centre for Cognitive and Emotional Health in Massachusetts, and who says that new technologies such as email, voicemail and instant messaging is contributing to the problem, believes ADT can be controlled by making changes in the working environment.

"ADT is a very real threat to all of us," he says. "If we don't manage it, it will manage us. I recommend companies to invest in things that contribute to a positive atmosphere."

Professor Cary Cooper, professor of organisational psychology and health at Lancaster University, says the problem of mental ill-health in the workplace is reaching epidemic proportions.

"We all know there is a big problem going on. It is the new disease - the black plague of the 21st century."

He says there are a number of causes: "Change, and change over which people feel they have no control, is a significant cause of stress. Twenty years ago, we had a nine-to-five culture with an hour off for lunch. We did not have the new technology that overloads us. Jobs were also relatively secure, while now they are intrinsically insecure.

"We know that if you consistently work long hours - and that is more than 41 a week, not 50 - you will get ill. The way in which people are managed causes problems, too. We manage people more by targets and performance indicators, more by fault-finding than by praise and reward. Recognising that there is a problem is the first step."

Recognition may head off the kind of acute problem of karojisatsu, or work-related suicide, seen in Japan, which has been linked to more than 1,000 deaths. "Long working hours, heavy workloads and low social support may cause depression, which can lead to suicide," say the researchers. "Appropriate countermeasures are urgently needed."

- INDEPENDENT