Search

Objectives: Local government concerns over expenditure on social and healthcare are growing. The aim of the present study was to explore the association between a weak 'sense of coherence' (SOC) in teens and their subsequent risk of receiving social and healthcare benefits during young adulthood, and to monitor how SOC developed during this period. Design: Prospective cohort study. Setting: North Denmark Region. Participants: 773 Pupils from seventh and eighth forms who answered a questionnaire in 1998. Outcome measures: Different social benefits (from the Danish DREAM database embracing disbursed public social benefits). Change in SOC score from 1998 to 2010. Results: 722 had answered seven items of the original SOC-13 questionnaire (denoted by SOC-7). Girls with a weak SOC-7 (the lowest 1st quartile) in 1998 had a significantly increased risk of receiving unemployment benefits (RR 1.3 (1.1 to 1.6)), social assistance (RR 1.8 (1.3 to 2.5)) and sickness benefits (RR 1.5 (1.2 to 2.0)) compared with girls with a strong SOC-7. For boys, only minor protective and non-significant differences were found. The SOC answers from 1998 and 2010 were compared (n=394). SOC increased significantly and mostly in girls. Conclusions: SOC-7 may serve as a predictor for social life event outcomes and hence facilitate an early identification and a selective approach to support teenage girls with a weak SOC. From adolescence to young adulthood, SOC-7 was of a relatively unstable nature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The body of evidence verifies the predictive value of certain work characteristics for mental health problems and that various levels of adaptation mechanisms are employed when dealing with adversity. Data on the relationships between employees’ mental health status, their perceptions of work, and their psychological defences are scarce.Aims: To examine the role that personal defences play in the relationship between psychiatric symptoms among working people and their working environment.Methods: Nine hundred and seventy six employees (mean age = 42.4 years, SD = 11.3) participated in a questionnaire study that included the Defence Style Questionnaire, the Symptom Checklist 90 revised, and the Copenhagen Psychosocial Questionnaire .Results: Data showed that greater maturity of psychological defences was associated with higher level of psychological functioning and there were strong associations between presence of psychopathology and the three defence clusters. Results indicated a strong positive correlation between the mature defence style and the perception of a satisfactory workplace. There was no interaction between psychopathology and defences in relation to work environment.Conclusion: Psychopathology and defences were significantly associated with work conditions, which could suggest that adaptation mechanisms and psychopathology are two independent forms of adjustment to the rapidly changing world of work. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Introduction: The aim of the present study was to establish if social inequalities in early childhood, particularly living in a socially and economically deprived neighbourhood, are predictive of later unemployment., Material and Methods: A cohort was established in 1987. It consists of 8-9 year-old children living in a socially deprived suburb who were followed in national registers for all categories of welfare benefits. The follow-up covered the period when participants were 21-27 years of age. A control group with the same age and gender distribution who were living in a neighbouring, relatively privileged middle class district were also followed for the purpose of comparison., Results: The annual unemployment rate during the seven years of follow-up was significantly higher in the deprived neighbourhood group than in the middle class neighbourhood group, whereas long-term unemployment lasting more than two years did not differ significantly between the groups. Childhood background including a mother receiving social benefit was an independent factor associated with increased risk of later unemployment, whereas gender and single parenthood were not., Conclusion: The present findings suggest that socioeconomic disadvantage during childhood substantially increases the risk of unemployment in early adulthood, even during a follow-up period in the first decade of the 21st century when employment opportunities in Denmark were excellent., Funding: not relevant., Trial Registration: not relevant.

Introduction: This article describes the incidence of first contacts with the psychiatric hospital services in the County of North Jutland (NJA) and the Municipality of Copenhagen (KK), Denmark, from 1 January 1994 to 31 December 2002., Materials and Methods: All persons age 18 and over living in NJA and KK in the period from 1 January 1994 to 31 December 2002 were identified through the Central Office of Civil Registration. First contacts with the psychiatric hospital services in the two areas were identified through the Danish Psychiatric Central Research Register., Results: Standardised incidence rates of psychiatric diagnoses were generally higher in KK than in NJA. Overall, for all diagnoses, there were 37 first contacts for men per 10,000 person-years in KK and 21 in NJA. For women, there were 40 contacts in KK and 26 in NJA. For diagnoses in the F0 group, the frequency was higher in NJA, with 6.7 first contacts per 10,000 person-years for men and 7.3 for women in NJA, compared with 4.5 for men and 3.9 for women in KK. For women with F6 diagnoses, the frequency was also higher in NJA than in KK: 2.7 first contacts per 10,000 person-years in NJA compared with 1.6 in NJA. Outpatient diagnosis of first-contact patients was more frequent in NJA than in KK (66% in NJA and 59% in KK)., Conclusion: The incidence of psychiatric diagnoses was higher in the urban area of KK than in the rural area of NJA. The higher incidence of F0 diagnoses in NJA may be due to differences in ways of registration. This might also explain why, in this investigation, more diagnoses after outpatient evaluation were made in NJA than in KK. We believe it is essential that continuing work on guidelines for registration of illness treatment in Denmark be performed.