Depression dubbed 'the new back pain' with 50,000 Scots claiming sick pay

Published on Saturday 23 May 2009 18:58

THE number of Scots claiming sick pay for depression has rocketed to more than 50,000, according to new figures produced by health chiefs.

Research by the Healthy Working Lives group at Glasgow University found that one in six people who are on the 70-a-week sickness benefit get it by blaming for depression. In 2000, the figure was just 36,000.

Health chiefs last night said that the increase was not due to an increase in poor mental health but because those out of work know that GPs are more likely to sign claim forms for sick pay because of depression than other ailments.

Dr Ewan Macdonald of the Healthy Working Lives group said: "Mental health is the new back pain. Now, because you know you are not going to get a sick note with a back problem, you say you are depressed. There is no evidence that these illnesses such as bipolar disorder are increasing. What is increasing is the number of people who are saying they are unhappy."

He added: "Part of the problem is that we are over-medicalising these social problems. People are unhappy and we are medicalising their complaints. These people don't need medical solutions, they need case management solutions."

He went on: "With a lot of these people you have to ask do they really have depression? Who diagnoses it? The GP. How much time does the GP have to sort out psychosocial problems? We are medicalising unhappiness in a ten-minute consultation. People are going to their GP and saying they can't sleep, that they are feeling miserable and that they can't cope and they will get a sick note for one month. We need to de-medicalise this problem and empower people so that they have an action plan to get back to work."

The figures showed that a total of 136,530 people on Incapacity Benefit in 2007 – now renamed as the Employment and Support Allowance – blamed "mental health disorders", or one in three of the total across Scotland.

However, only a small minority of these cases were more serious psychiatric conditions such as schizophrenia. Nearly half were those blaming depression, while most of the rest were people suffering from "neurotic and anxiety disorders", or stress.

While the number of people on incapacity benefit for mental health reasons has rocketed, the numbers claiming due to musculoskeletal pain – such as back pain – has slumped from 44 per cent to 15 per cent of total claimants. Researchers attribute this to a fall in manual work and because GPs no longer prescribe rest for back pain.

Researchers concluded that people with depression did not necessarily need to be claiming the benefit. "The large number of individuals diagnosed as having a depressive, neurotic or anxiety disorder opens up the possibility that many of these individuals might respond to treatment and may not have permanent disability," the report says.

Mental health charities stressed that depression was a real condition which required treatment. They said a lack of proper help for people meant that GPs were often left with little choice but to prescribe antidepressants and time off.

Billy Watson, chief executive of the Scottish Centre for Mental Health, said: "The best way to support people with mental health problems would be to provide prompt access to a wide range of treatments, which is why we are campaigning for the Scottish Government to act on its promise to introduce maximum waiting times for mental health services."