Anxiety disorders and workplace-related anxieties

Background: Workplace-related anxieties are often connected with sick leave. There are no established instruments which allow to assess this phenomenologically heterogeneous group of disorders. Method: One hundred and thirty-two psychosomatic inpatients were interviewed with a standardized diagnostic interview in respect to mental illnesses, especially primary anxiety disorders, and in addition in respect to different work-related anxiety disorders. Results: Seventy-one percent of women and 54% of men complained about work-related anxiety. 20.5% of participants are suffering from work-related panic, 58% from work-related phobia, 34.1% from work-related social phobia, 39.4% from work-related generalized anxiety, and 1.5% from work-related PTSD. There is a moderate relation between mental disorders or primary anxiety disorders and work-related anxiety. Fourteen percent of the participants did only suffer from workplace-related anxiety and did not report any other anxiety disorder outside the workplace situation. Conclusion: There are various types of workplace-related anxieties. They are partly independent clinical phenomena deserving special diagnostic and therapeutic attention.