CASE STUDY 5
Successful Return to Work 4 Days/week after
Inability to Cope and Depression
Background
 |
35-year-old executive
assistant to VP with four years service. |
Family
|
Left school at 16, married
at 19 years of age and had 2 children aged 14 and 10. |
| |
Returned to work when youngest child
was 6 months old. |
|
Husband’s business failed 5
years previously, at which time both she and her husband had
depressive episodes. |
Changes at work
|
Did not want a ‘career’,
but her boss was promoted to VP and gave her a bigger job. |
| |
Her new role included new projects
with increased workload, additional pressures, and managerial
responsibilities. |
Events leading up to inability to cope
|
Declining support from
her parents who had recently retired and moved away. |
| |
Regularly visiting her husband in
hospital after working a 10-hour day. |
|
Cancelling a business meeting in
Paris due to her husband’s condition: then working from
home to catch up on workload on the day before her holiday. |
|
Returning from holiday to 270 emails,
as well as uncertainty about the status of the plans for an offsite
meeting which she and a colleague were responsible for planning. |
|
Working from home the next day at
which point she felt unable to cope, culminating in a panic attack
for which she was medically treated. |
Occupational Health Intervention
|
Seen by occupational
physician who referred her privately to a consultant psychiatrist. |
| |
Initially treated as an outpatient,
but eventually admitted for treatment for 3½ weeks as
husband also became depressed at this time. |
|
Occupational physician liaised with
consultant psychiatrist and psychologist to monitor condition
and to determine when employee would be fit to be rehabilitated
back to work. |
Outcome
|
After 6 months’ sickness
absence, employee was rehabilitated back to work part-time with
no management responsibilities. |
| |
Employee improved her ability to
manage pressures, and also recognised her limitations. |
|
She asked to be placed in a position
with no management responsibilities, and requested a 4-day working
week. |
|
She successfully returned to work
4 days a week. |
|