Challenges and opportunities for preventing depression in the workplace: a review of the evidence supporting workplace factors and interventions.

OBJECTIVE To explore the literature regarding prevention of depression in the workplace. METHOD Literature review of what the author believes are seminal articles highlighting workplace factors and interventions in preventing depression in the workplace. RESULTS Employees can help prevent depression by building protective factors such as better coping and stress management skills. Employees may be candidates for depression screening if they have certain risk factors such as performance concerns. Organizational interventions such as improving mental health literacy and focusing on work-life balance may help prevent depression in the workplace but deserve further study. CONCLUSION A strategy to prevent depression in the workplace can include developing individual resilience, screening high-risk individuals and reducing that risk, improving organizational literacy, and integrating workplace and health care systems to allow access to proactive quality interventions.