HOW DO MENTAL FACTORS PREDICT ABILITY TO COPE WITH LONG-TERM UNEMPLOYMENT

We investigated in our prospective study the mental well-being and its association with personality structuralization in 45 randomly chosen workers who had been given notice from a wood-processing factory durin g a follow-up period of 1 year. Mental well-being deteriorated in the subjects who received a psychiatric diagnosis on the basis of DSM-III- R at the beginning of the follow-up period. Other factors predicting m ental ill-health were less independent personality structuralization a nd uncertainty about the future. Compared with the base-line situation , the factors predicting rapidly increasing mental stress were old age , poor social interaction, the presence of many psychosomatic symptoms , and subjective psychiatric problems. Whether the subject was employe d at the time of the follow-up was not associated with the change in m ental stress. According to the study results, factors associated with the personality structure of an individual are highly predictive of th e ability to cope with unemployment.