This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.

Manager mental health training may reduce employee sick days

Samuel Harvey

A 4-hour manager mental health training program was associated with decreased work-related sickness absence among fire and rescue service members.

“One of the key problems of mental illness is the impact it can have on people’s careers, but this doesn't have to be the case,” Samuel Harvey, PhD, of University of New South Wales, Australia, said in a press release. “Having a supportive manager can make a huge difference to a person’s mental well-being, and as this study shows, giving basic mental health training to managers can bring significant changes to both confidence and behavior among staff.”

To assess the effect of mental health training on managers’ knowledge, attitudes, confidence and behavior towards employees with mental health problems and employee sickness absence, researchers conducted a cluster randomized controlled trial among a large Australian fire and rescue service cohort. Managers at the level of duty commander or equivalent were randomly assigned to receive a 4-hour, in-person RESPECT mental health training program (n = 46) or a deferred training control group (n = 42). Managers and employees were followed and reassessed 6 months after randomization. Primary analysis used data for 25 managers in the intervention group and 19 managers in the control group.

During follow-up, the mean rate of work-related sick leave decreased by 0.28 percentage points from a pretraining mean of 1.56% in the intervention group and increased by 0.28 percentage points from 0.95% in the control group.

This corresponds with a reduction of 6.45 hours per employee every 6 months.

Mean percentage of standard sick leave increased by 0.48 percentage points from 4.97% in the intervention group and by 0.31 percentage points from 5.27% in the control group.

“Managers are in a unique position to help employees with their mental health, yet many can feel reluctant to raise mental health concerns without formal training. With a large proportion of employees now working longer and more flexibly than in previous generations, these results are a promising sign that managers can take a more active role in assisting their employees to lead mentally healthier lives,” Harvey said in the release. “These findings are particularly relevant for frontline emergency services workers, who face unique stressors throughout their daily duties that can potentially worsen or directly cause mental illness, such as PTSD.” – by Amanda Oldt

Disclosures: Harvey is employed by the Black Dog Institute, which provides mental health training to workplaces. Please see the study for all other authors’ relevant financial disclosures.