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Understanding the Barriers and Facilitators to Employment for People with Bipolar Disorder

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Abstract

People with Bipolar Disorder (BD) consistently report a desire for employment; however, this is not reflected in employment figures. Individuals’ perceptions of barriers to employment, along with endorsement of facilitators to employment remain under-investigated. We aimed to address this limitation by: (i) first examining differences in employed versus unemployed individuals (demographic, clinical, functioning); then (ii) identifying barriers and/or facilitators to employment, perception of same, and subsequent impact on employment. We assessed demographics, functioning, and illness-related characteristics in 35 participants with BD (19 employed, 16 unemployed). Participants were asked to indicate perception of common barriers and facilitators to employment. Groups did not differ regarding demographic or clinical variables. High levels of absenteeism, termination of last role and commonly perceived barriers were attributed to mental ill-health. 93.3% of unemployed participants reportedly desired employment, and more perceived barriers were observed in the unemployed group. Identified facilitators included increased support and flexible work strategies. A comprehensive understanding of perceptions of limiting and helpful factors related to employment for people with BD was obtained. These findings have implications for service provision, encouraging targeted discussion, and tailored treatment approaches to individual’s unique perceptions of factors related to employment.

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Consent was provided by participants solely for the purposes of this study. Data is available for auditing purposes and subject to ethical approval.

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Contributions

All authors contributed to the writing and/or editing of this paper. KF and PF were responsible for study conception and design, Kf for data collection and PF supervision. SC has provided supervision with analysis. The first draft of this manuscript was written by KF, and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to K. M. Filia.

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Ethics approval was granted by the Alfred Human Research and Ethics Committee and Monash Standing Committee on Ethics and Research.

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Written informed consent was obtained from all participants included in the study.

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All participants consented to this research being published at time of informed consent.

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Filia, K.M., Cotton, S.M., Watson, A.E. et al. Understanding the Barriers and Facilitators to Employment for People with Bipolar Disorder. Psychiatr Q 92, 1565–1579 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11126-021-09931-w

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