In a long-term analysis of the last 20 years, DAK-Gesundheit came to the conclusion that sick leave due to mental illnesses has tripled since 1997. For this purpose, the DAK evaluated the sick leave due to mental illness for the “Psychoreport 2019”. According to the employees reached the highest level in 2017 with 250 days of absence per 100 insured persons. In 2018 they fell by around 5.6 percent to 236 per 100 insured persons. Mental illnesses were thus in third place among the types of illness last year.
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The most common diagnoses
Most absenteeism days were caused by the diagnoses of depression, followed by adjustment disorders due to strokes of fate or drastic changes, as well as neurotic disorders and anxiety disorders. Burnout, which has lost relevance since 2012, is also being diagnosed more frequently again. This is particularly the case for people over the age of 60. Burnout is mainly caused by chronic stress at work.
Increasing mental health at work
One of the most common reasons for the increased number of sick leave is the increased stress at work due to ever more intense workloads. There is a disproportionately high number of days absent, especially in public administration and in the healthcare sector. In general, women are affected twice as often (298 absent days per 100 insured persons) as men (183 absent days). In fact, mental health issues are more openly addressed to doctors today than they were 20 years ago. This also leads to an increased number of absenteeism days. According to the DAK, a total of 2.2 million people in Germany are affected. The front runner is Saarland with 3.1 absent days per insured person, Bavaria brings up the rear with 1.9 absent days per insured person.
More than 5 million people are insured in the DAK. It is therefore one of the largest statutory health insurance companies.
