Developing Healthy Workplace Environments Within BC Healthcare

Workplace-related mental illness is becoming an increasingly serious problem across Canada and the provinces. The estimated cost of mental illness in Canadian workplaces is currently well over $20 billion, with $12 billion due to lost work days and $11 billion due to decreased productivity. In British Columbia, the healthcare industry is one of the more critical job sectors shouldering these costs, where workplace related mental illness currently accounts for 13% of successful long-term benefit claims by healthcare workers). The rise in disability and absences due to mental illness put greater stress on an already overburdened workforce that needs to remain health to provide quality patient care.

Research Summary

Workplace-related mental illness is becoming an increasingly serious problem across Canada and the provinces. The estimated cost of mental illness in Canadian workplaces is currently well over $20 billion, with $12 billion due to lost work days and $11 billion due to decreased productivity. In British Columbia, the healthcare industry is one of the more critical job sectors shouldering these costs, where workplace related mental illness currently accounts for 13% of successful long-term benefit claims by healthcare workers). The rise in disability and absences due to mental illness put greater stress on an already overburdened workforce that needs to remain health to provide quality patient care.

This four-year study has the following objectives:

• to determine the level and nature of exposure to work stress by health care workers in BC;
• to identify current preventative programs and services available within the health authorities that address risk factors, as well as facilitators and barriers to optimal mental health among health care workers;
• to determine which work stressors are negatively impacting health care workers’ mental health and retention and the resulting impact on the quality of care received by patients;
• to identify, pilot, and evaluation interventions within each Health Authority that will address prioritized mental health risk factors as evidenced by the qualitative and questionnaire data; and
• to develop an infrastructure to facilitate communication between and within health authorities to sustain the ongoing development of healthy workplace environments for health care workers.