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It is commonly believed that employment has more health benefits than unemployment. But then, is any form of employment helpful in reducing distress in people, irrespective of its quality? A new research suggests that having a job with poor psychosocial quality can be as bad for one's mental health as being unemployed.

Usually, it is believed that those who are employed are less prone to be psychologically ill, when compared to people who are unemployed. Also, it is believed that when people move from unemployment into work, their mental health improves, Medical Xpress reports.

Research conducted previously has shown how moving to a high quality job can reduce psychological distress in people, but when a person moves from unemployment to the poorest psychosocial quality job, he/she can actually experience increased levels of distress.

However, the previous research did not consider the experience of Clinical Mental Disorders (CMD). For the current study, researchers analyzed data from the English Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Survey and took into account the prevalence of CMDs such as anxiety and depression among 2,603 respondents aged between 21 and 54 years. The participants of the study were either employed or unemployed and seeking a job.

The quality of work they were involved in was assessed with the number of adverse psychosocial job conditions reported by the participants.

The findings of the analysis of the interview with participants revealed that there was no difference in the rates of CMD among the unemployed and the ones in a poor quality job. People belonging to both categories were more likely to experience a CMD compared to those who worked in high quality jobs.

"While employment is thought to promote mental health and wellbeing, work of poor psychosocial quality is not associated with any better mental health than unemployment. Policy efforts to improve community mental health should consider psychosocial job quality in conjunction with efforts to increase employment rates," lead author of the study, associate professor Butterworth said.

He continued, "On a positive note, the current results suggest that good quality work is associated with lower rates of psychiatric disorders. This provides policy makers, coordinators of workplace programs, and employers with a potential tool or leverage point for improving mental health in the community. The improvement of psychosocial work conditions, such as reducing job demands, and increasing job control, security, and esteem can flow on to improvements in employee's mental health and reduce the burden of illness on public health systems."

The article was published in Psychological Medicine.