For the study, researchers from the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health in Turku, Finland, "collected data on 3,347 Finnish workers, ages 30 to 64," asking "about people's workplace environment -- specifically about team spirit and the quality of communication and about how they felt about the demands of their jobs."

Next, "participants were asked to rate their workplace according to four descriptive phrases: 'encouraging and supportive of new ideas,' 'prejudiced and conservative,' 'nice and easy,' and 'quarrelsome and disagreeing.'" The team found that people who "thought team spirit was poor were about 60 percent more likely to report being depressed and 50 percent more likely to take antidepressants than those who rated it high."

Workers who said team spirit was poor "were 53 percent more likely to have used antidepressants during the first few years after they were interviewed," WebMD (4/9, Hendrick) added. In fact, "during the three years of follow-up, nine percent of the participants had bought antidepressant medications." Yet, the investigators "found no correlation between the climate at work and alcohol use disorders," and the study's "findings took into account factors such as age, gender, marital status, history of mental-health disorders, job demands, and tenure."

The authors concluded that "more attention should be paid to psychological factors at work."