Workaholism linked to psychiatric disorders

Some psychopathologies could go hand in hand with work addiction. Which ones?

Addictions are often culturally associated with the small pleasures of life that most of the population recognizes as such: sweet or carbohydrate food, Internet use, tobacco (for smokers), etc.

However, there can also be addictive behaviors related to tasks that not everyone appreciates. Workaholism is an example of this..

Work addiction and other associated psychopathologies

Workaholism, or workaholism may seem positive from the point of view of short-term productivity, but it has very negative health consequences. Spending more time than necessary at work causes eating and sleeping rhythms to change and become much more compressed in schedules, hours of rest to become scarce and stress levels to skyrocket, in addition to impoverishing people's social lives.

However, a study recently published in PLoS ONE links workaholism not only to health problems, but also to fatigue and poor nutrition.It also does so with the risk of onset of symptoms associated with mental disorders.

OCD, depression, ADHD...

The results found show a correlation between workaholism and similarities with symptoms of disorders such as Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), depression or Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Thus, workaholics or workaholics have a tendency to present mental disorders in a higher proportion than the population that does not experience this type of addiction.

This research is based on the study of 1,300 people living in Norway, who filled out a series of questionnaire pages. Each of these volunteers was given a score on a scale of workaholism based on options such as "how often in the past year have you worked so much that your health has suffered because of it?" But, in addition, the questionnaire included questions about indicators of certain mental disorders.

The link, or significant correlation, between the presence of workaholism and sets of symptoms associated with mental disorders emerged once these data were cross-referenced. Specifically, about 8% of the participants showed tendencies toward workaholismThe proportion of people affected by disorders was much higher among these people.

Specifically, 32.7% of people whose characteristics matched those of workaholics had symptoms associated with ADHD, 32.7% of the people whose characteristics coincided with those of the workaholic presented symptoms associated with ADHD, while for the rest of the volunteers the percentage was 12.7%.while for the rest of the volunteers the percentage was 12.7%. Twenty-five percent of them could present OCD, and 33% stress disorders. As for the proportion of people whose description matched the diagnostic criteria for depression among the workaholics, it was 9%, being 2.6% among the rest of the group of volunteers.

Conclusions and reflections

These results are not so surprising if we take into account the extent to which the effects of workaholism can be widespread in modern life. With the widespread use of laptops, tablets and smartphones with Internet access, working hours are increasingly becoming the hours that used to be dedicated to leisure, and are mixed with household chores and personal life outside the office.

The new workaholics have no clear reference to know when the professional aspect ends and the hours dedicated to leisure begin. and when the hours dedicated to leisure, rest or family reconciliation begin. That is why, if work addiction used to be limited to the walls of the building in which one works, now these walls have fallen and the horizon of possibilities for adding hours to work (and subtracting them from private life) has expanded far beyond what is sometimes healthy.

In light of studies like this one, we can reach a clear conclusion. Tools and strategies to prevent the onset of work-related stress must not only shoulder the responsibility of making us efficient workers in the long term, away from the burnout syndrome that can cause our productivity to plummet, but more importantly, they must preserve our levels of health and well-being.