2023-07-18 12:40:53
Eurogip publishes a report on current practices for recognizing work-related mental disorders in Europe. France is the country that recognizes the most psychological pathologies in accidents at work.
It is now accepted that working conditions can impact the mental health of workers. Also, the prevention of psychosocial risks has become a priority in many countries. But the question of recognizing the occupational nature of mental illnesses is far from being unanimously accepted in Europe. EUROGIP devoted its latest study to this.
This recognition comes up against obstacles of a legal nature first of all. National definitions and jurisprudential interpretations of what constitutes an accident at work, on the one hand, and regulatory procedures for the recognition of occupational diseases, on the other hand, do not allow the management of mental pathologies in this respect everywhere.
Where such recognition is possible, the question arises of the objectification of the causal link between exposure and disease, which is almost never presumed in law.. A worker’s mental health can indeed be affected both by degraded working conditions and by extra-professional factors.
Recognition in accident at work (AT) and occupational disease (MP)
It turns out that under certain conditions, a mental illness following a precise, sudden and unforeseeable event can theoretically be recognized as an accident at work in many European countries.
But more and more workers now report suffering from non-traumatic disorders (depression, burnout, etc.), caused by the organization and working conditions, the violence or the management method with which they would be confronted at their place of work. work. These situations, then corresponding to prolonged exposure to a psychosocial risk, raise the question of recognizing mental disorders as occupational diseases, a question on which only a few countries – Denmark, Spain, France, Italy, Sweden – positioned themselves favorably some twenty years ago.
The country that recognizes the most psychic pathologies in AT is France (ratio of 50 per 100,000 insured, 100 if assimilated cases are considered), followed by Denmark (ratio of 33). Spain has a ratio of 3.
Finally, almost everywhere we observe a relative stability over time in the number of applications for recognition and recognized cases. In France, however, the easing in 2012 of the conditions for entry into the off-list recognition system led to a continuous upward trend in both requests for recognition and cases
recognized
The new EUROGIP report therefore focuses on:
- mental disorders linked to psychosocial risks (those caused by toxic substances, in particular solvents, are excluded);
- to the five countries that recognize mental disorders as occupational diseases, as well as to Germany and Belgium where information on work accident recognition is available;
- the process of recognition of the occupational nature of mental illnesses;
- statistics published by “workplace accidents / occupational diseases” insurers.
One point concerns the recognition of suicide.
Recognition and management of work-related mental disorders in Europe (Germany, Belgium, Denmark, Spain, France, Italy, Sweden), Eurogip, May 2023 – Download report
1689696667
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