PT - JOURNAL ARTICLE AU - Norman Beale AU - Susan Nethercott TI - The nature of unemployment morbidity. 1. Recognition DP - 1988 May 01 TA - The Journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners PG - 197--199 VI - 38 IP - 310 4099 - http://bjgp.org/content/38/310/197.short 4100 - http://bjgp.org/content/38/310/197.full SO - J R Coll Gen Pract1988 May 01; 38 AB - The case records of one group practice have been used as the data base for a longitudinal, controlled study of unemployment and health. Previous numerical analyses have shown increases in reported morbidity in families threatened with and experiencing unemployment. The illnesses reported have now been classified by diagnostic category. The illnesses normally most prevalant were presented less frequently when patients' jobs were insecure and lost, contradicting the suggestion that excess morbidity reported by the unemployed results only from lowered symptom tolerance. On reassembling the data according to the number of consultations per episode a genuine unemployment morbidity was indicated. After job loss among the male employees there was a significant increase in the number of episodes for which there were four or more consultations. It is postulated that unemployment leads to chronic ill health.