Dipartimento di Medicina Clinica e Sperimentale, Section of Psychiatry, University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy.
Saint Camillus International University of Health and Medical Sciences, Rome, Italy.
CNS Spectr. 2021 Feb;26(1):7-13. doi: 10.1017/S1092852920000140. Epub 2020 Apr 7.
The worldwide economic crisis of the last decade, and still unresolved, led to a great recession involving all major economies. Since economic factors may influence mental wellbeing, not surprisingly a rise in poor mental health was observed in different countries, while representing a great challenge to psychiatric interventions. This paper aims at reviewing the available English literature focusing on the impact of the current economic crisis on mental health, with a special focus on depression and suicide. Available studies indicate that consequences of economic crisis, such as unemployment, increased workload or work reorganization, and reduced staff and wages, may constitute important stressing factors with a negative impact on mental health. Although data are not easily comparable in different countries, depression seems to be the most common psychiatric disorders especially in middle-aged men. Even suicide rates seem to be increased in men, mainly in countries with no public welfare or poor family relationships. All these findings require a careful attention from both governments that cut resources on public health instead of investing in it, and psychiatric associations that should implement appropriate strategies to face and to manage this sort of depression epidemic driven by economic crisis. Again, as available data suggest that the impact of the crisis might have been attenuated in countries with higher spending in social protection, they clearly urge policy makers to take into account possible health externalities associated to inadequate social protection systems.
过去十年的全球经济危机仍未得到解决，导致所有主要经济体都陷入了严重衰退。由于经济因素可能会影响心理健康，因此不同国家的心理健康状况不佳呈上升趋势也就不足为奇了，这对精神科干预构成了巨大挑战。本文旨在综述现有的英文文献，重点关注当前经济危机对心理健康的影响，特别是对抑郁症和自杀的影响。现有研究表明，经济危机的后果，如失业、工作量增加或工作重组，以及员工和工资减少，可能构成对心理健康产生负面影响的重要压力因素。尽管不同国家的数据不易比较，但抑郁症似乎是最常见的精神疾病，尤其是在中年男性中。即使自杀率似乎也有所上升，主要是在没有公共福利或家庭关系不佳的国家。所有这些发现都需要政府和精神科协会的关注，政府削减了公共卫生方面的资源，而不是投资于公共卫生，协会应该实施适当的策略来应对和管理这种由经济危机驱动的抑郁症流行。同样，正如现有数据表明，在社会保护支出较高的国家，危机的影响可能已经减弱，这清楚地敦促政策制定者考虑到与不完善的社会保护系统相关的可能的健康外部性。
