Is Your Job Getting You Down?

A survey released on October 11, 2007 by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) says that child care workers, home health care aides and other people who provide personal services have the highest rates of depression among U.S. workers. The survey also reported that 10.8 percent of personal care and service workers and 10.3 percent of food preparation and serving workers experienced one or more major depressive episodes in the past year.

The least depressed workers were those in architecture, engineering, the sciences and in the installation, maintenance and repair fields.

SAMHSA used data from the National Survey of Drug Use, which involved interviews of more than 60,000 people. The SAMSHA depression survey focused on workers aged 18 to 64.

According to the report, "Combined data from 2004 to 2006 indicate that an annual average of seven percent of full-time workers aged 18 to 64 experienced a major depressive episode in the past year."

SAMHSA reported the following annual percentages of full-time workers experiencing at least one episode of major depression in the previous year:

• Personal care - 10.8 percent
• Food preparation and serving - 10.3 percent
• Community and social services - 9.6 percent
• Health practioners and technical - 9.6 percent
• Arts, design, sports and media - 9.0 percent
• Education, training and library - 8.7 percent
• Financial and sales - 6.7 percent
• Legal and transportation - 6.4 percent
• Management - 5.8 percent
• Farming, fishery and forest - 5.6 percent
• Construction and mining - 4.8 percent
• Installation, maintenance, repair - 4.4 percent
• Life, physical and social science - 4.4 percent
• Engineering, architecture, surveyor - 4.3 percent