Employer attitudes toward employing persons with psychiatric disability in Japan

The Attitudes toward Employment of Psychiatric Disability scale (ATEP) was developed to assess employer attitudes toward employing people with psychiatric disability. In total, 358 employers representing fourteen Japanese industries were surveyed by questionnaire to assess their attitudes in four major areas: employer motivation, activity limitation, prejudice and fear, and attention distribution. The results were categorized according to six employment sectors derived from the fourteen classes of the Japan Standard Industrial Classification [22]. Service sector employers faced activity limitation due to employees with psychiatric disability less than did employers in the construction and manufacturing sectors. As well, employers in the wholesale, retail trade, and food and beverage sectors faced less activity limitation than did employers in the manufacturing sector. Employers between sixty-and-seventy years of age faced more activity limitation than did those between thirty-and-forty years old. Employer motivation for employing people with psychiatric disability correlates with fear, prejudice, and prior experiences employing those with psychiatric disability. However, these factors only partially explain employer motivation. The prospect that these findings might assist employers is discussed in this article.