This review paper describes current situations and challenges of occupational mental health in Japan, state-of-art of occupational mental health activities, and its future directions. The recent challenges include increasing incidence of depressive disorders, more involvement of business perspectives, widening social inequality in a workplace, harassment and mobbing at work, mental health problems related to overwork, and lower implementation of occupational mental health activities in medium and small-sized enterprises. The current activities for occupational mental health, based on the Japan Ministry of Health, Labour, and Welfare "the Guideline for Promotion and Maintenance of Mental Health among Workers", consists of four major activities, i.e., education/training and information dissemination, work environment improvement, consultation for workers with mental health problems, and support for return-to-work of workers with mental health problems. These activities are very basic ones; However, they may be not enough effective for the recent challenges. Future activities for occupational mental health may include the evaluation and improvement of psychosocial stress in a company organization, the primary prevention of depressive disorders, and a service provided to support return-to-work of workers with mental health problems in medium and small-sized enterprises.

View full abstract

  Physical check-up provides one of the best opportunities for evaluation of stress levels both of employees and work environment. It is essential to clarify the objective of stress evaluation, and focus the appropriate indices. All stakeholders should be aware of the rationale of stress evaluation and the results should be used for improving either for individual welfare or work environment according to the rationale. It is also necessary to consider the cost and feasibility of the questionnaire as well as measures for protecting employees' privacy for efficient stress evaluation. Both reliable and valid instruments are recommended to use but employing quizzes may also be useful to evaluate the understanding of employees on stress.

View full abstract

  In Japan, employee assistance programs(EAPs) have attracted much attention since 2000 when the Ministry of Health and Welfare formulated guidelines for the promotion workers' mental health in the workplace. EAPs have been developed as an off-site mental health service. There are some differences between an EAP as implemented in the US and as it is in Japan. EAPs in the US are aimed at improving the productivity of the organization and provide a much needed-service to resolve job performance issues. However, EAPs in Japan tend to be characterized as a service specific to the mental health of employees. There are some problems related to standardization and quality assurance.
  This article aim to report the process of the start-up of our EAP service, mainly for companies in the Chugoku region of Japan, and various problems it faced. It also discusses the current status of EAPs in Japan and problems encountered by them.

View full abstract