Mental health issues in the workplace: Part 4 

Part 4: OH professionals as preventionists 

Summary:

In the fourth part of a series of articles on mental health at work, Dr Greg Couser explores the vital role OH professionals can play in helping to prevent mental health problems developing among their employee-patients. 

Occupational health (OH) professionals are naturally preventionists, such as when they practice tertiary prevention by promoting recovery from illness and injury to prevent downstream consequences of impairment and disability. A thriving occupational medicine practice may also provide secondary prevention, which focuses on early detection and intervention. In a mental health context, screening tools such as the PHQ-9 and GAD-7 (discussed in part two of this series)² help with secondary prevention. However, since many OH professionals have direct relationships with the companies they serve, there are ample opportunities to move even further upstream for primary prevention to intervene before the onset of illness. In a physical health context this could mean recommendations to reduce modifiable workplace factors… 

Greg P Couser, MD, MPH, is a consultant at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, US, where he is the medical director of the employee assistance programme. He has formal residency training and board certification both in psychiatry and in occupational medicine.

 

 

Author: Couser G

Tags mental health

Occupational Health at Work December/January 2022/2023 (vol. 19/4) pp33-38

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