A new study finds that people who work in the arts, design, entertainment, sports, and the media are more likely to have frequent mental distress than those in other fields. Overall, about one in ten workers reported frequent mental distress, according to the study, published in June in JAMA Network Open.

The study looked at data on more than 460,000 people from Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) surveys (2015–2019). Aaron L. Sussell, Ph.D., and colleagues looked at three key measures of mental health among the participants:

• Lifetime depression (having been diagnosed with depression at some time in their life)
• Mentally unhealthy days (number of days in past 30 days mental health not good)
• Frequent mental distress (reporting 14 or more days in the previous month when mental health was not good)

Overall, 14.2% of participants reported lifetime depression and 9.6% reported frequent mental distress. Looking at frequent mental distress, the prevalence was 1.32 times higher among workers in the arts, design, entertainment, sports, and media compared with workers in the reference group*. Other occupations with higher prevalence of frequent mental distress included:

• Food preparation and serving (1.20 times)
• Health care support (1.19 times)
• Sales and related occupations (1.13 times)

Compared with workers in the reference group, the prevalence of depression was highest among:

• Workers in community and social services (1.47 times)
• Workers in the arts, design, entertainment, sports, and media (1.34 times)

The occupations with higher levels of extreme distress compared to all workers included:

• Health care support
• Food preparation and service
• Building and grounds cleaning and maintenance
• Personal care and service
• Sales and related occupations

“Workplaces can play a role in identifying and reducing psychosocial hazards and promoting workers’ mental health,” Sussell and colleagues wrote. “More research is needed to evaluate work-related factors and workplace intervention effectiveness.”

Jobs Requiring Highest Stress Tolerance

Data from the U.S. Department of Labor provides a look at the jobs requiring the highest level of stress tolerance (job requires accepting criticism and dealing calmly and effectively with high-stress situations). Among the top ten are several health care related occupations:

1. Film and Video Editors
2. Anesthesiologist Assistants
3. Judges, Magistrate Judges, and Magistrates
4. Urologists
5. Acute Care Nurses
6. Advanced Practice Psychiatric Nurses
7. First-Line Supervisors of Personal Service Workers
8. First-Line Supervisors of Retail Sales Workers
9. Nurse Anesthetists
10. Nurse Midwives

Positive and Negative Distress-Related Aspects of Jobs

An earlier study, in 2023, looked at jobs at higher and lower risk of distress and mental health problems and asked workers about aspects of their work associated with distress. (Laditka, et al. 2023) The most common positive descriptions of jobs, more often associated with jobs with lower levels of distress, included:

• Social support
• Sense of accomplishment
• Control over work
• Manageable job demands

The most common negative descriptions, more often associated with higher distress jobs, included:

• Excessive job demands (physically demanding or too much pressure)
• Low social support (conflicts with co-workers or managers, no chance to meet people or make friends)
• Lack of control
• Lack of sense of accomplishment

The research also found that worker distress increased with time in a high-risk occupation. That is, the longer a person was on the job in a high-risk occupation, the greater distress they experienced — a 5% increase in risk of developing distress with each year on the job.

The authors conclude that the risk of psychological distress associated with some occupations “may be due to occupation characteristics rather than worker characteristics and non-occupational distress risks—or in addition to them. . . . Providers of health care and social services should ask patients or clients about work-related distress.”