A recent article by Kessler et al. (2006) found the average number of lost productivity days for those with major depressive disorder was 27.2 per year, with a standard error of 4.8. The data was taken from a nationally representative sample of U.S. workers in the National Comorbidity Survey Replication. Both absenteeism and presenteeism were measured with the WHO Health and Work Performance Questionnaire. Absenteeism accounted for 8.7 days lost per year while presenteeism accounted for 18.2 lost days per year.

An earlier study by Stewart (2003) found that depressed employees miss an average of 30 more workdays per year than non-depressed employees.

Several other publications cite larger estimates of lost absenteeism and presenteeism, but they appeared earlier than the two above and sometimes suffered from smaller sample sizes and other methodological issues.

Kessler RC, Akiskal HS, Ames M, Birnbaum H, Greenberg P, Hirschfeld R, Jin R, Merikangas KR, Simon GE, Wang PS (2006). Prevalence and Effects of Mood Disorders on Work Performance in a Nationally Representative Sample of U.S. Workers. The American Journal of Psychiatry, 163: 9, 1561-1568.

Stewart WF, Ricci JA, Chee E, Hahn SR, Morganstein D (2003). Cost of lost productive work time among US workers with depression. Journal of the American Medical Association, 289(23): 3135-3144.

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