Occupation characteristics in affective disorders.

One hundred and fifty-four consecutively evaluated new and return psychiatric outpatients were examined by the same interviewer using a detailed, precoded questionnaire based on the diagnostic criteria for psychiatric research proposed by Feighner et al. Affective disorders were present for 75% of the patients and were associated with a history of past employment at a declared occupation, inactive occupation status, and recent occupation status change. Sixty patients with diagnoses of primary affective disorders and 56 patients with diagnoses of secondary affective disorders were identified and studied. The primary affective disorder was associated with higher level and longer held occupations with fewer changes of occupation activity status than was the secondary affective disorder. Forty-one patients with diagnoses of unipolar primary affective disorders and 19 patients with diagnoses of bipolar primary affective disorders were examined. The unipolar illness was associated with a shorter duration of occupation type and less permanent unemployment than was the bipolar illness.