Chronic pain and home working: a toxic mental health mix?

To continue reading please register or login to your OHW+ account.

There has been a lot of focus during the pandemic on physically safe and healthy home working. But what about mental health, especially for those living with and managing chronic pain from a home-working setting, asks María de los Angeles Zapata Rodríguez?

The Covid-19 pandemic has exacerbated the debate regarding the necessity of having a proper workstation for those who work at home. This physical setting will typically be constituted by a good (if possible, ergonomic) chair, a desk, a computer, and many other elements. However, how many times do we discuss the most important workstation, our heads?

This workstation is varied, complex, and the keystone to many work-related issues. For the sake of this article, mental health will be explored from the depression angle in people living in chronic pain.

Understanding chronic pain

Chronic pain is one of the major disabling conditions in the UK, 43% of the British population lives in chronic pain, and 61% of these consider themselves depressed.

But what is chronic pain? As the name suggests, it is feeling pain all days, all day (or at some point during the day). Chronic pain itself is a condition, but it can also be a result of other associated conditions. However, no matter the reason or where it comes from, chronic pain has vast consequences in people’s lives.

In biological terms, there is a connection between chronic pain and depression. They are in the same regions of the brain, and they happen within similar neurological functions. From this perspective, it seems that chronic pain could cause depression. However, this perspective only focuses on the biological component, which completely dismisses the environment, and where workplaces have something to say (or to do, or to deconstruct).

There is what is called “the collective worldview”. Basically, we’ve been all raised in some social and cultural settings where som