Persons with mental disorder try to live a satisfactory life by adapting themselves to a community through stable job maintenance despite many discrimination factors after labor market access. However, since personal and environmental problems occurri...
Persons with mental disorder try to live a satisfactory life by adapting themselves to a community through stable job maintenance despite many discrimination factors after labor market access. However, since personal and environmental problems occurring in a vocational life can be factors interfering with their job maintenance and can furthermore have negative effects on the rehabilitative goal of return to society, investigation into main factors affecting job maintenance is a very important task.
In this context, it is important to examine relations between socio-demographic, disorder-related, vocational-ability, and socio-environment factors and job maintenance and to analyze effects of those factors on job maintenance. To conduct this study, data collection was implemented in a sample of 970 employed persons with mental disorder who registered themselves for employment counseling in the Korea Employment Promotion Agency for the Disabled for 6 years from 2002 to 2007; with improper ones excluded, 511 persons were selected for the study, 300 maintaining their job for 3 months or more and 211 maintaining their job for less than 3 months.
The results can be summarized as follows:
After analyzing relations between each factor and job maintenance, 6 factors―age as a socio-demographical factor, disease type as a disorder-related factor, sociality and past occupational history as vocational-ability factors, and family support and occupation employed as socio-environmental factors―were found to be related to job maintenance.
Second, as for effects of those factors on job maintenance, disease type exerted the greatest effects on job maintenance, followed by past occupational history, family support, occupation employed, and business size. Mentally-disordered persons whose disease type was higher, who had past occupational history, who got lower family support, who were employed in simple labor, assembly, or service/sales, or who worked in a large business were more likely to show job maintenance, with disease type having the greatest effects on job maintenance.
On the basis of the results, the following suggestions can be made.
First, in the academic respect, researches on systematic management of mentally-disordered persons who dropped out as well as on those who succeeded in job maintenance are required; in this process, it is necessary to conduct a research continuously, including investigations into disease type, past occupational history, family support, occupation suitable to persons with mental disorder, and working environment.
Second, in the strategic aspect, vocational-rehabilitation approaches to persons with mental disorder in the age-groups of late-30s or more as well as in those of working age are required; in this process, a range of strategic support and researches will be necessary on mentally-disordered persons at the high academic level and on those employed in simple production and labor.
Third, in the practical aspect, it will be necessary to provide individualized programs or various rehabilitation services to reinforce self-identity and self-efficacy which can improve disease type as well as self-control of symptoms. Since this is to help patients cure the damaged self and overcome disorder through counseling and proper program intervention based on phone calls and visits by rehabilitation professionals as well as their own self-reported checklist about symptom management.