Mental Health

What is mental health
Mental Disorders are health conditions that are characterized by alterations in thinking, mood and behaviour associated with distress and or impaired functioning.
Mental Health is viewed as bodily systems working in successful functioning, harmony and balance.

Imbalance disharmony of the bodily systems may cause illness which originated from physical, psychological, nutritional intake, workplace environment or spiritual influences within the workplace.
If at workplace, an employee is subjected to constant or continuous workload or exposed to stressful environment, the body’s ability to fight infection is reduced

Stress all of its forms, from mental to job-related, affects physical health in a variety of ways including social health and lives

Daily social interaction in the workplace between superiors and subordinates or neighbourhood indicates the level of good mental harmony.

Most people will experience stress at work. However when an employee or person or group becomes chronically affected by stress, there will usually be characteristic signs and symptoms that can provide clues.


What causes mental health disorder
Occupational stress causation.
Financial problem
Household conflict
Bully or politicking at workplace
Low self-esteem
Office workload
Physical illness
Traffic congestion
In-conducive working environment
Past tragedy

Early symptoms of stress
Symptoms of stress
Restless and Depression or unusual display of emotions
Sleeping disorder
Poor performance and time keeping
Hot-tempered, poor judgement and indecisiveness
Consumption of drug, tobacco, alcohol or caffeine
Unexplained absences from work or sick leave
Creating a healthy workplace.
Every employer should and or need to develop policies and procedures to ensure that their approach is systematic and thorough. A specific policy relating to mental health at work is advisable by means of preventing problems through eliminating and minimising stress at source.

Adequate and suitable education or training programme and proper communication channel to assist individuals or groups who are experiencing the effects of stress to channel and seek redress. Setting up of counselling unit (either external counsellor) is a forward step in channelling any grievances.
Early intervention and progressive support from the management and promotion of positive health can minimise stress at workplace.

Other likely step should be taken by the Employer to minimise stress at workplace:
a) avoid or minimise autocratic management styles
b) due respect to ideas by workers
c) treat the workers well not like robot. They have feelings.
d) Create conducive working environment – flexible management style, management by walking etc
e) Value and tap the human capital capabilities at the organisation
f) Provide micro credit facilities if possible to ease any financial burden
g) Training and re-training to facilitate higher productivity
h) Promotion by merit and avoid office politics
i) Reward to performing staff
j) Create or provide more welfare programmes

Other precautionary steps in keeping your mental health in good shape
Always think and speak positively. You will get what you think. Your “think” will develop into thought that will eventually drive you either positive or negative.
Other proactive steps that every individual can do to avoid minimise and eliminate stress
Depression eclipses other chronic disease for poor health status.
Food additives may cause hyperactivity thus leading to heart complication.
Portion-control dishes or food intake helped people from obesity.
Waist size of 40inches for men and 35inches for women increases the risk for heart related diseases and diabetes.
Unfairness will increase heart risk and cannabis or tobacco disrupts brain centre.
Sleeping pills can cause strange behaviour like driving and eating while asleep or hallucinations.
Always practice good behaviour at workplace and neighbourhood.

Occupational Disease

Work related diseases, unlike occupational disease which has a direct cause-effect relationship between hazard and disease (eg. asbestos-asbestosis), are defined as multi factorial diseases among a working population when the work related diseases environment and the performance of work contribute significantly but as one of a number of factors to the causation of disease. Work related diseases which are partly caused by work, and/or aggravated, accelerated or exacerbated by occupational exposures, and/or the cause of impaired work capacity can also be partially caused by adverse work conditions. Personal characteristics, genetics, lifestyle and environmental and socio cultural factors usually play a role as risk factors for these diseases.

In 2004, Ass. Prof. Malcolm Sim of Monash University highlighted that in contrast to work related injuries that is traumatic, work related diseases is something which will tend to come on some time later after a latent period, like a cancer or respiratory disease. Hence, it is difficult to link the disease to the work environment because of the time lag although based on studies in Australia, work related diseases are very much common. For example it has been suggested that between 15 to 20% of adult asthma could be occupational in origin. He was also of the opinion that respiratory tract cancers, bladder cancers and leukemia can be related to work practices but they are not well recognized as work related diseases due to the disease itself having multiple causes.2

Common work related diseases are musculoskeletal disorders including Hand Arm Vibration Syndrome and Repetitive Strain Injury, heart disease, high blood pressure, work related cancer, respiratory/lungs diseases, skin disease, psychological disorders, stress diseases, and deafness. A specific example of work related diseases and the percentage in a population can be described by a survey conducted in the United Kingdom (UK). The Occupational Physicians' Reporting Activity (OPRA) surveillance scheme for occupational physicians which was conducted for 4 years (1996-1999), estimated 43,764 new cases of work-related disease have been reported. Musculoskeletal conditions make up nearly half (49%) of all cases; mental ill-health and skin disease account for 20% each, with respiratory conditions (8%) and hearing loss (5%) seen in lower proportions. Overall, eight of 42 diagnoses made up four-fifths of the new cases reported by occupational physicians. These were hand and arm disorders (8052 estimated cases), contact dermatitis (7104), disorders of the lumbar spine (6000), anxiety and depression (4788), work-related stress (3336), hearing loss (2100), elbow disorders (2040), and asthma (1680). Dermatitis and hearing loss were most frequent in manufacturing industries, lower back complaints in healthcare, and upper limb disorders in automotive manufacture. Psychiatric illnesses presented a different pattern, mainly affecting those in health, education and social service.3

“Decent Work Must Also Be Safe Work”

INCIDENT INVESTIGATION

An incident is inevitable if there are no controls in place. An incident will not always involve personal injury. An incident may also be property damage, environmental damage or a near miss.
Near Miss - an incident which could have caused serious bodily injury or extensive damage to property, but in the particular case did not. These are recorded so that steps can be taken to prevent a recurrence where injury or damage may occur.

It is important to investigate all incidents because
Investigation allows for the identification of incident causes to establish preventative strategies
It provides a point of reference to establish trends in incident causes.
It encourages organisations to communicate incident information and learn from past incidents
It also shows that the organisation is taking appropriate actions to prevent recurrence of the incident
Incidents may become common law cases up to three years later. If not properly investigated at the time of the incident, details fade and memories become confused.

Who should investigate the incidents?
This will be dependent on the seriousness of the incident and the potential or actual loss, damage or injury involved. The investigation team may include
Immediate supervisor
Workplace Health and Safety Representative/Officer
Person/s involved
Head of School/Element
Health and Safety Specialist and
External consultant (if applicable to the incident)

The Strategy of an investigation includes four stages
Gather information and establish facts
Isolate the essential contributory factors
Determine corrective actions
Carry out corrective actions

You need to ask 6 questions:
1. Who was involved?
This includes people both directly involved (injured or eye witnesses) and those that may be able to contribute useful information about facts surrounding the incident; eg supervisors who know what “usually” happens, trainers of persons involved, peers etc.

2. What happened?
This includes the equipment involved, the processes undertaken, systems, and what happened before and immediately after the incident. What “action” led to this incident? eg fall, slip, long-term exposure, hitting. What was happening, what task was involved?

3. When did the incident occur?
When was an incident noticed? When did the person involved start work that day? How much experience had they had in the task? It is important to identify here the date, time of day and other psychosocial issues that may have contributed to the event.
Psychosocial issues that may impact on when and incident occurs includes
- Has the person involved just worked extended hours?
- Did the incident occur at night/ on a night shift?

4. Where did the incident occur?
Have there been previous incidents in this particular area? What was the investigation outcome for previous incidents? Are there any physical aspects of the environment that may have contributed to the incident?
Look for both big and small differences and aspects of the environment.

5. How did the incident occur?
What was unusual about the event? How could the incident have been prevented? This may lead to the direct cause of the incident.

6. Why did the incident occur?
Was the person involved properly trained for the process undertaken? Were there safety procedures in place? Has a risk assessment been conducted for the task in question? Why were safety systems, procedures, training not followed? or Were systems followed but they failed?
The “atmosphere” at the time of the incident and psychosocial issues will impact on why an incident has occurred eg is it the last day before a holiday, is there some reason why the importance of safety precautions may be diminished?
Taking photos of the incident site and notes immediately after the incident occurs helps to formulate a good investigation.