In these guidelines, the World Health Organization (WHO)
provides evidence-based global public health guidance on
organizational interventions, manager and worker training,
and individual interventions for the promotion of positive
mental health and prevention of mental health conditions,
as well as recommendations on returning to work following
absence associated with mental health conditions and
gaining employment for people living with mental health
conditions. The guidelines indicate whether and what
interventions can be delivered to whole workforces – e.g.
within a workplace (universal), to workers at-risk of mental
health conditions (selective), or to workers experiencing
emotional distress (indicated) – or to workers experiencing
mental health conditions. Through the provision of these
new WHO recommendations, it is anticipated that the
guidelines will facilitate national and workplace-level actions
in the areas of policy development, service planning and
delivery in the domains of mental and occupational health.
The guidelines seek to improve the implementation of
evidence-based interventions for mental health at work.
The guidelines were developed in accordance with the
WHO handbook for guideline development and meet
international standards for evidence-based guidelines. In
collaboration with the Guideline Development Group (GDG),
the WHO Steering Group developed key questions and rated
outcomes in order to identify those which were critical
for the development of the guideline. Conflicts of interest
from all individual guideline contributors were declared,
assessed and managed in line with WHO’s Compliance, Risk
Management and Ethics (CRE) policy