Why Mental Health Can’t Be Ignored During Work Injury Recovery

Mental health can’t be ignored during work injury recovery. This might sound like common sense to Safety Managers, but now there’s a body of data to back it up.

What’s the latest research on the relationship between work injuries and mental health challenges? Read on to find out.

Researchers test association between mental health and work injury recovery

Amid the surge in mental health issues in the workplace, we have yet another wrinkle. And that is the relationship between previous work injuries and subsequent mental health challenges.

Two researchers from elite Canadian universities tested out this association. Steve Granger and Nick Turner conducted a comprehensive empirical review to explore the relationship between work injuries and mental health challenges.

Work injuries and mental health challenges equally expensive

They started from the premise that both work injuries and mental health challenges impose significant costs on organizations, society, and the sufferers themselves.

The total cost of work injuries in 2022 was $167.0 billion, according to the National Safety Council. That figure includes wage and productivity losses of $50.7 billion, medical expenses of $37.6 billion, and administrative expenses of $54.4 billion.

For their part, untreated mental health concerns are equally financially burdensome, costing some businesses up to $60,000 annually, according to the Center for Prevention and Health Services.

Existing data also shows that apart from their high expense, work injuries and mental health challenges also share other troubling characteristics; from the article, Work injuries and mental health challenges: A meta-analysis of the bidirectional relationship:

Far too many individuals needlessly endure preventable work injuries and manageable mental health conditions. Worse still, these issues are compounded by widespread underreporting, driven by fears of repercussions, insufficient workplace accommodations, and complex reporting processes.

Clues into the relationship between work injuries and mental health challenges

Mitigating costs and alleviating suffering, however, requires a measure of insight into which comes first, and which influences the other.

What did the researchers find when they looked into the data?

Granger and Turner detected a positive association between the two phenomena. Those suffering a work-related injury became prone to “negative cognitions and maladaptive thoughts.”

In other words, work-related injury often precipitated mental-health challenges.

Safety response to address the relationship between work injuries and mental health challenges

So, what can businesses do to respond proactively?

According to the researchers, return-to-work programs, such as they exist, should focus on psychological rehabilitation alongside existing physical rehab.

This is part and parcel of ensuring mental health and wellbeing in the workplace.

What might workplace mental health strategies and tangible actions look like? According to some of the best-practice literature out there, they might look like the following:

Designing and managing work to minimize harm

• Provide opportunities for workers to have control over their work schedules
• Provide opportunities for workers to be involved in decision-making
• Meet safety requirements to reduce risks to mental and physical injury

Promoting protective factors to maximize resilience

• Build an organizational culture of flexibility on where, when, and how work is performed
• Provide opportunities for employee participation in organizational level decisions
• Provide professional development opportunities
• Provide resource groups to support workers in career management
• Ensure senior staff engage in mental health promotion and develop a positive team / organizational climate and a psychosocial safety climate
• Leadership training including workplace mental health education
• Ensuring policies and processes are in place to maximize organizational justice
• Implement workplace health promotion programs
• Develop a mental health policy including zero tolerance of bullying and discrimination
• Promote fair effort and reward structures
• Ensure that change is managed in an inclusive manner with open and realistic communication

Enhancing personal resilience, generally and for those at risk

• Provide stress management and resilience training which utilizes evidence-based approaches
• Provide stress management and resilience training for those in high-risk jobs
• Promote regular physical activity at the worksite
• Provide mentoring and coaching

Promoting and facilitating early help-seeking

• Consider conducting wellness checks
• Provide stress management training
• Ensure any existing EAP and workplace counselling programs are using experienced staff and evidence-based methods
• Provide mental health first aid training
• Consider the role of peer support schemes
• Ensure policies relating to response to workplace trauma are evidence based and not reliant on routine psychological debriefing

Supporting workers’ recover from mental illness

• Provide training programs for leaders and supervisors on how to support workers’ recovery
• Support partial sickness absence
• Modify job/work schedule/duties where appropriate
• Support workers on return-to-work and/or those receiving work-focused exposure therapy
• Eliminate discrimination from recruitment

Increasing awareness of mental illness and reducing stigma

• Provide mental health first aid training
• Conduct regular mental health awareness programs and training
• Promote mental health related events
• Provide access to mental health information and resources
• Include mental health education in staff induction and people development

What are some other interventions to be deployed in lieu of the relationship between mental health challenges and workplace injures? Check out our Guide to Establishing Best-Practice Interventions to Improve Mental Health in the Workplace to find out.