An employee shows up at the office and turns on his computer but spends the day struggling to concentrate on what he sees on the screen.

This scenario may be costing U.S. companies $44 billion each year in lost productivity among depressed workers, according to a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. That figure is $31 billion higher than would be expected in the absence of depression, the researchers found.

In phone interviews with 1,190 workers, researchers found depressed employees report losing about 5.5 hours each week in reduced performance while on the job.

People with depression are often able to get to work, but fatigue, irritability, loss of concentration and trouble relating to people can make it difficult for them to work well, says Walter Stewart, an epidemiologist at Geisinger Health Systems in Pennsylvania and lead researcher for the study. Indeed, results revealed that 80 percent of lost productivity occurred while workers were on the job.

Depression affects about 9 percent of the workforce at any given time, Stewart says, but often it is invisible to bosses and coworkers. "People with depression aren't talking about what they are suffering from," says Stewart. "They come to work and get through the day."

Compared with other common chronic afflictions such as migraine headaches or allergies, depression is particularly costly to employers because episodes last from two to eight weeks or longer, Stewart says. Highlighting the cost of untreated depression might encourage employers to pay for additional mental health benefits, create in-house screening programs and educate their employees about the symptoms of the illness, says Anthony Lo Sasso, an assistant professor at the Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern University in Illinois.

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