Medicalizing the Disclosure of Mental Health: Transnational Perspectives of Ethical Workplace Policy Among Healthcare Workers

Abstract

The disclosure of mental health conditions in the health‐care workplace is a global concern that presents many challenges during the prehiring and posthiring process. Even more concerning is the transnational variance in workforce policy that stigmatizes and marginalizes prospective employees who disclose mental health conditions, even those who are not substance abusers or addicts. In the United States, nurses who disclose mental health diagnoses are expected to enroll in substance abuse monitoring or peer assistant programs designed specifically for and mostly attended by addicts. Comparatively, global perspectives indicate that the (non)disclosure of mental health in the workplace is similarly stigmatized and medicalized, aka inappropriately labeled. This paper examines the medicalization of mental health workplace policy from a global perspective (United States, Australia, and New Zealand). Online narratives are presented as examples that question and criticize the social justice of medical workforce policies including the consequences of (non)disclosure.