Need of mental health care in commuters

Due to changes in settlement patterns and availability of workplaces the ra te of working people forced to commute will increase during the next years. Commuting affects physical and mental health in many ways. Nevertheless on ly little research has been done so far in the field of consequences for me ntal health as well as for commuting as a protective factor. In general com muters complain more about health problems, especially psychosomatic sympto ms, and tend to absenteeism from work due to illness more than non-commuter s. Especially long-distance commuting seems to be an enormous stress factor in the long term. Risk-groups are commuting women, having higher psycholog ical stress-scores, and shift workers reporting higher frequencies of sympt oms and higher degrees of impairment. Therefore preventive measures should be offered especially for these two groups. It is not very well known if co mmuters are able to benefit from the health care system, especially from ps ychosocial counselling. Commuters seem to be a neglected group in the utili zation of mental health services - despite a high prevalence of psychic dis orders. Finally, proposals for the improvement of the psychosocial situatio n of commuters are discussed.