TOPLINE:

In the UK, men accounted for 68% of all cases of occupational posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and 42% of all cases of mental health issues, with police officers and military personnel accounting for 20% and 11% of the cases, respectively, a 28-year surveillance study showed.

METHODOLOGY:

• Researchers analysed data on incident cases of work-related illnesses from January 1996 to June 2024, collected by the Occupational Physicians Reporting Activity (OPRA), a voluntary surveillance system in the UK.
• Occupational physicians voluntarily reported cases either monthly or for one randomly selected month each year, with cases coded according to the International Classification of Diseases, 10th Edition (ICD-10) clinical guidelines.
• Over the 28-year period, a total of 26,373 cases were reported, of which 397 were cases of occupational PTSD (median age, 42 years).
• Content analysis techniques were applied to free-text entries regarding causative traumas to identify themes and types of psychiatric traumas across occupations.
• Comorbid conditions were identified using the relevant ICD-10 codes included by the reporting clinician.

TAKEAWAY:

• PTSD accounted for 2% of all OPRA-reported cases (68% men) and 3% of all OPRA-reported mental health cases (42% men) over the 28-year period, with police officers, soldiers, and nurses accounting for 20%, 11%, and 7% of all PTSD cases, respectively.
• The mean duration between symptom onset and assessment by an occupational physician was 30.6 months, suggesting delayed referral and treatment.
• Physical assault (22%) was the most common single trauma associated with the diagnosis of PTSD, followed by military trauma (17%) and physical incidents or hazards at work such as gas leaks, explosions, or electrocution (10%).
• Among the 397 individuals with PTSD, 54 had comorbid conditions; 48 of these were mental health conditions, most commonly major depressive disorder (n = 21), other physical and mental strain related to work (n = 12), and unspecified anxiety disorder (n = 10).

IN PRACTICE:

"These findings have illuminated the various occupations and traumas associated with real-world reported PTSD cases," the authors wrote.

"The lengthy mean duration between onset of PTSD symptoms and occupational physician assessment and report to OPRA speaks to the chronicity and complexity of these PTSD cases. This lengthy duration between onset and assessment could justify earlier referral to occupational health to ensure earlier diagnosis and effective treatment to enable better rehabilitation," they added.

SOURCE:

The study was led by Ben Green, University of Manchester, Manchester, England. It was published online on May 21 in Occupational Medicine.

LIMITATIONS:

The study was limited by the voluntary nature of the reporting scheme; potential over-representation of certain industries; the unavailability of contemporaneous denominator data; shifts in the nature of work and working populations over the 28-year analysis period; probable under-reporting of occupational illnesses; the lack of involvement of consultant psychiatrists; non-uniform psychiatric training among occupational physicians; and the lack of data on duration of absence from work, symptom severity, associated disability, and treatment.

DISCLOSURES:

This study received support from the Health and Safety Executive in the UK. One author disclosed employment with the Health and Safety Executive.

This article was created using several editorial tools, including AI, as part of the process. Human editors reviewed this content before publication.