How much does depression cost?

Fortunately, depression is ceasing to be perceived as a taboo question. Maybe it’s due to celebrities who no longer hide their condition; maybe it’s due to a peculiar fashion – the affliction is more and more discussed. It is a tremendous malady both for the person suffering from it and for his or her loved ones. Anyone who didn’t experience it or never had a chance to live with a disordered person can imagine the condition only as an oven-like place, where the suffering one drowns in the lava at the bottom of an inferno…

Not only is it, though, an atrocious malady, but also a burden to the global economy, as there are currently 350 million people suffering from it around the world, of which 1.5 million are Poles. As the statistics show, the malady is diagnosed mostly in people aged between 20 and 40, thus those who should be the most productive. It results from the report of the Management of the Healthcare Institute at the Łazarski’s University in Warsaw that the Polish budget spends even 3.5 million zlotys a year because of depression. In 2013, almost 3.8 million days of work absence due to depressive episodes were registered. That’s approximately 10 000 years, thus 1.6 million days are associated with recurrent depressive disorders. The National Health Fund spends nearly 170 million zlotys a year on treating the condition, and costs for the Office for Social Assurances are several times larger – the state budget spent approximately 800 million zlotys on allowances alone. The effectiveness of ill workers compared to the healthy ones is statistically  5.6 hours per week lower. According to the European Committee on the Safety and Health  at Work, this difference generates losses in the job market in Europe in an amount of 616 million Euros,  which is 2.7 billion zlotys a year.

There is no Polish research on the costs of presenteeism, but they are enormous for the economy worldwide. For example, in Australia, it was 34.1 billion dollars in 2009 – 2010, which responds to a 2.7 drop in the GBD of this state compared to the situation when there is no ineffective presence at work. According to the prognosis, in 2050, the costs will be 35.8 billion dollars higher than in 2009-2010.

Putting the costs aside, we must remember that there are actual suffering people behind the data. Over 0.5 million people worldwide commit suicide due to depression… In Poland, the system for mental health protection is, first of all, dramatically under-funded; second of all, the National Health Fund only pays for treating diagnosed malady, prevention is not included in its procedures. According to WHO, without system solutions, depression will „jump” from the 4th to the 2nd place in the rank of the most common maladies, right behind circulatory system diseases.