Personal Care Workers Report More Depressive Episodes

The NSDUH report said, however, an annual average of 7% of full-time workers experienced a major depressive episode in the past year.

According to the NSDUH data, the highest rates of major depressive episodes were found in the personal care and service occupations (10.8%), followed by the food preparation and serving occupations (10.3%).

Among female full-time workers age 18 to 64, those in the food preparation and serving related occupations reported the most major depressive episodes (14.8%), and among males, those in the arts, design, entertainment, sports and media occupations reported the most (6.7%).

The report said the research found females were more likely to report episodes of depression than males (10.1% and 4.7%, respectively), and full-time workers aged 18 to 25 were more likely to have a past year major depressive episode than full-time workers in all other age groups. Among full-time workers aged 18 to 25, the highest rates of past year major depressive episodes were reported in the health care practitioners and technical occupations (11.9%).

The occupational categories with the lowest rates of past-year major depressive episodes were engineering, architecture, and surveying (4.3%); life, physical, and social science (4.4%); and installation, maintenance, and repair (4.4%).

The NSDUH report is here .