Unemployment and mental health in Galicia, Spain

In our Neuropsychiatric dispensary in Galicia, all 3,000 consultations from June 1997 to May 1998 were summed up. We serve a population of 125,000 living in a semi-rural district dependent on a strong industrialised city with car, ship and fishing industry. Of all consulting people, 50% of the 1,000 new ones were unemployed, and 25% of the 2,000 who came for check-ups. In the group under 25 years of age not having had their first job, main findings were anxiety, stress migraine, schizoid outbreaks and self-referring delusion. In the group of young people with unstable jobs, we often found depression, phobias, anorexia/bulimia, low back pain and functional digestive disorders. Age groups 35-50 showed depression patterns, hypochondriac symptoms, low back pain and delusion outbreaks. Those over 50 years old often came from reorganised companies, and showed hypochondriac or psychosomatic sickness, or they applied for retirement or sickness benefits.