Health care use and at-work productivity among employees with mental disorders

This study examines the differential medical care use and work productivity of employees with and without anxiety and with other mental disorders at a large national firm. A unique aspect of this study is that we integrate me dical claims and employer-provided, objective productivity data for the sam e employees. We find extensive mental health comorbidities among anxious em ployees. Although medical care use differs considerably among employees hav ing no, one, or several treated mental disorders, in most cases their annua l average absenteeism and average at-work productivity performance do not d iffer. Differences among subgroups are observed for job tenure and maternit y claims. We discuss these long-term average productivity findings in relat ion to other literature encompassing shorter time periods.