- We have a large number of reasons for absence.
For the most part, it's colds.
It is not uncommon for people to report mental illness.
When the other curves have gone up and down, this group has been stable at low levels, says Maria Steneskog Nyman from the company Previa.
Previa has now published its statistics on sick reports from 410 Swedish companies, with a total of 156,000 employees.
It shows that reports of illness for psychosocial disorders among their customers have increased sharply since the beginning of August this year.
At the end of September 2019, around 500 days of absence (per 100,000 employees) were registered due to mental illness.
The same week this year, the same figure was over 2000.
Clear rise in mental illness
The mental problems are still low compared to, for example, colds, but are growing in a way that the company's analysts have not seen before.
- Mental illness does not follow the same pattern as in previous years.
It started to rise already this summer and has continued to rise during the autumn.
It is not the numbers that are important, but the trend break, says Maria Steneskog Nyman.
- We have not seen this before, Maria Steneskog Nyman continues.
Försäkringskassan, which keeps statistics on sick leave throughout Sweden, has a lag of three months, so Försäkringskassan's figures for the period measured by Previa will only come later.
SVT Nyheter Småland has also been in contact with the companies Comveritas and Quinyx, which in various ways provide systems for reporting illness.
None of these say they have seen any increase in their systems when it comes to days of absence due to mental illness.