Investigating the association between work family conflict (WFC) and generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) in an Australian community-based cohort study

Difficulties managing work and family demands are common and have been found to be associated with stress and poor mental health. However, very few studies have examined Work Family Conflict (WFC) in connection with diagnosable anxiety disorders (and none with Australian representative data). The current study investigated whether high WFC was significantly associated with a diagnosis of Generalised Anxiety Disorder (GAD) after controlling for a broad range of socio-demographic contextual factors, related psychosocial job, family and individual characteristics, and prior anxiety symptom history.

Data was analysed from an Australian population-based community cohort - the Personality and Total Health (PATH) Through Life project. Eligible participants (N = 1159) were employed full-time or part-time, with data collected by both online questionnaire and face-to-face interview. Presence of Generalised Anxiety Disorder (GAD) in the past 12-months was diagnosed by the GAD module in the Composite International Diagnostic Interview (CIDI) (based on DSM-IV criteria) and severe anxiety symptoms were measured using the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ) 7-item ‘other anxiety’ model.

The findings consistently showed that those experiencing high WFC had higher odds of a GAD diagnosis (final adjusted model: CIDI: OR: 2.55, CI: 1.38–4.70) as well as clinical levels of anxiety symptoms (PHQ: OR:2.61, CI:1.44,4.72). This was the case after controlling for an extensive range of covariates.

This is one of the first studies to show that WFC is associated with greater likelihood of GAD. The challenge of juggling both work and family can have far-reaching impacts - not just increasing distress broadly, but also potentially increasing the likelihood of clinically diagnosable anxiety.