Lewis, and her colleagues at Affinity Health have created an unprecedented academic overview of mental illness in this mobile workforce space by summarising the peer-reviewed literature, performing a survey of the “at-risk” population in multiple industry sectors, and conducting multiple interviews of relevant stakeholders that manage the business travellers.
Not surprisingly 61% of corporations surveyed had no resources for mental health support and 60% denied the existence of a wellness programme. At least half of those surveyed acknowledged that their mood suffered while on business travel. This data revealed that depression followed by stress and anxiety were the most common declared conditions. As anticipated, mobile workers with a history of mental illness, were most impacted by these aforementioned three conditions. More than three quarters of the respondents admitted that they worked more hours than usual when travelling which is most likely due to e-commerce. In fact close to 100% of those surveyed said that it was technology that enabled longer work hours when abroad.