HOW DO MENTAL FACTORS PREDICT ABILITY TO COPE WITH LONG-TERM UNEMPLOYMENT

We investigated in our prospective study the mental well-being and its association with personality structuralization in 45 randomly chosen workers who had been given notice from a wood-processing factory during a follow-up period of 1 year. Mental well-being deteriorated in the subjects who received a psychiatric diagnosis on the basis of DSM-III-R at the beginning of the follow-up period. Other factors predicting mental ill-health were less independent personality structuralization and uncertainty about the future. Compared with the base-line situation, the factors predicting rapidly increasing mental stress were old age, poor social interaction, the presence of many psychosomatic symptoms, and subjective psychiatric problems. Whether the subject was employed at the time of the follow-up was not associated with the change in mental stress. According to the study results, factors associated with the personality structure of an individual are highly predictive of the ability to cope with unemployment.