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For some time now, news has been circulating on social networks claiming that mental health is already the leading cause of absenteeism in Spain. A message that is taken for granted by the population and that even some specialists in the field repeat as a proven fact. And as if that were not enough, some media outlets have gone so far as to spread the idea that half of absenteeism in the country is due to this cause. A narrative that is not true, it is false data, as has been verified by Verificat, a non-profit Catalan fact-checking platform and cited by La Vanguardia.
These sources point out that of the approximately seven million work absences registered in Spain in 2024, “only” 643,861 were initiated for mental health reasons, according to data from the Ministry of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration. Therefore, mental health procedures represent around ten percent of the total, not 50 percent.
La Vanguardia has recently published, based on figures verified by Verificat, that the largest number of sick leave claims processed last year throughout Spain were those related to "diseases of the muscular and skeletal system and cognitive tissue", which accounted for 27 percent of the total. These include common injuries, such as tendonitis or muscle contractures. In second place are diseases of the respiratory system, which accounted for 19.33 percent of the total.
On the other hand, temporary disabilities due to mental health in the category of “mental, behavioral and neurological developmental disorders” occupied sixth place among the most frequent, both in Spain and Catalonia.
In fact, in Catalonia, the trend is similar to that of the whole of Spain. Thus, last year 192,526 work absences due to mental health were registered, 11 percent of a total of 1,731,439. As in the whole of Spain, the most frequent temporary disabilities are those related to the muscular and skeletal system, 24.7 percent of the total.
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