Mental health promotion, prevention and early intervention in the workplace

Given that high workforce stress is associated with reduced efficiency and absenteeism, it is critical that governments and businesses promote mental health and manage stress in the workplace for both individual well-being and overall productivity. We know that high workloads, tight deadlines and a competitive work environment can contribute to stress, anxiety and burnout. To illustrtate, and looking at one component of the workforce only, injury compensation claims from the Australian education workforce exceeded $41million, with other data showing that school staff made more work-related stress claims than many other professions (Worksafe Victoria, 2023). Nonetheless, many interventions in this field target individual efforts to initiate changes in behaviour (e.g. mindfulness) and do not address the systemic and workplace issues that create the stress (Berger et al., 2022). This focus on the individual negates the role that leaders, policy-makers and colleagues have in promoting well-being and alleviating stress. There is much literature showing that both the individual (e.g. coping style, personality, family and informal support networks) and the workplace (e.g. colleagues, workload, the nature of the role, workplace opportunities for promotion and development), contribute to stress and well-being (see, for example, Reupert, 2020), which means that both need to be targeted in workforce mental health interventions.

Having a mental health challenge and asking for help often carries a stigma and employees may be reluctant to disclose their struggles due to the fear of judgement and potential negative consequences. Addressing and reducing stigma is essential for creating an open and supportive workplace culture and these may be delivered not only in the workplace but also in other community settings. Two different papers in this current issue investigate stigma; Chow et al. (2023) evaluated a brief web-based depression literacy intervention on different forms of stigma amongst college students, while Ross et al. (2023) explored the experiences of advocates with lived experience of mental illness and their engagement with media. Even though Chow et al. (2023) did not find quantifiable changes, the study nonetheless provides some guidance for others working in the stigma field around intervention design and delivery. In a very different study, Ross et al. (2023) highlighted the value of having those with lived experiences of mental illness share their experiences with the media, to demonstrate the impact of public stigma to a wide audience. The authors recommend creating carefully supported additional media opportunities to further extend their impact and ensure different voices and experiences are heard.

Family responsibilities also have an impact on an individual's capacity to manage workplace stress. During pandemic lockdowns, the impact of family life on workplace stress was clearly shown, especially for some families (Berger & Reupert, 2020). Sheen et al. (2022) found that amongst frontline healthcare workers there were increased family demands and concerns about ‘bringing it [COVID] home’ which impacted family dynamics and productivity. Families, where a member has a mental illness, may be especially vulnerable to external stressors such as workplace stress, on family functioning and well-being (Waller et al., 2019). In the same field, Kristensen et al. (2023) investigated how parents with a mental illness report their parenting sense of competence. The results indicate that parents with a mental illness do not feel less competent in the parenting role compared to the general population, which has interesting implications for those who design parenting programs for this population group (Reupert & Maybery, 2011).

Other papers in this issue explore the different sites in which mental health promotion and early intervention may be offered. For example, Nickbakht et al. (2023) explored the factors influencing mental health referrals for adults with hearing loss in the audiology setting. Stapley et al. (2023) investigated young people's experiences of school and community-based prevention programs, settings which others have also identified as opportunistic sites for mental health promotion for young people (Reupert, 2020). Dias et al. (2023) describe an intervention involving physical activity and psychoeducation for young people on mental health waiting lists with results showing good acceptability and improvements in well-being, an important finding, given the need for early intervention with young people, especially after the pandemic (Berger et al., 2021).

Once again, the journal has fulfilled its remit to showcase the varied approaches to mental health promotion and early intervention, involving various workplace, community and informal settings.