poor mental health affects workers productivity by reducing workers marginal productivity when they are at work presenteeism and increasing the rate of absence or reducing the numbers of hours worked sickness absence workers lose an average of one hour per week owing to depressionrelated absenteeism and four hours per week due to depressionrelated presenteeism stewart et al mental health problems are a predictor of both shortterm and longterm sickness absence increasing the probability of shortterm leave by and that of longterm leave by for severe disorders and for mildtomoderate disorders oecd also depression symptoms have a significant and large effect on sickleave duration since they account for an additional days of annual sick leave knebelmann this is problematic since longterm absence acts as the main pathway into disability benefits eg karlstrom et al