A review of workplace interventions that promote mental wellbeing in the workplace.

According to the most recently available Labour Force Survey for 2004-2005, 509,000 individuals in the UK believed they were suffering from stress, depression or anxiety and these conditions were caused or made worse by their current or past work. This resulted in an estimated 12.8 million working days lost with an average of 30.9 days off over a 12 month period.Those employed in the public sector had some of the highest rates of self-reported stress, anxiety and depression. In particular those with heavy workloads, tight deadlines, lack of support at work, in a threatening environment are recognised as being at an increased risk of stress, depression or anxiety. This review aims to determine which workplace interventions are effective and cost-effective in improving mental wellbeing.The review considered studies that assessed the effectiveness of specific workplace interventions aimed at either promoting or improving mental wellbeing. The concepts involved encompass a wide variety of topics feeding into the term mental wellbeing. Nineteen databases and twenty-four websites were searched for relevant research including systematic reviews, reviews and original research papers. On receipt of the abstracts, the titles were filtered and those that were irrelevant were discarded. Abstracts were then screened and papers were obtained for those that fitted the inclusion criteria. Data extraction and quality assessment were carried out with studies rated as ++, + and -. Results of the data extraction and quality assessment for each study were presented in structured tables accompanied by a narrative summary.The review of the effectiveness of workplace interventions to improve mental wellbeing included 66 primary studies. A broad range of interventions were identified and were evaluated based on either organisational interventions or stress management interventions.