The purpose of the project in question is to investigate the access to recognition and compensation of psychological afflictions as work related injuries. The incentive to investigate the subject is, that psychological afflictions are often associated with problems, such as the difficulty of establishing causality and how to account for this fact when meting out compensation. It takes a closer look at the Danish labor market insurance act, legal precedence, and other relevant sources. The project emphasizes the role of ICD-10 in assessing and recognizing work-related psychological afflictions such as the dynamic between it and the law. To this end, the project focuses on a select few afflictions from chapter V of ICD-10, commonly found in case law. These afflictions are depressive episode (F32), recurrent depressive disorder (F33), and the distinct afflictions of reactions to severe stress and adjustment disorders (F43), including post-traumatic stress disorder (F43.1), adjustment disorder (F43.2), other reactions to severe stress (F43.8) and reactions to severe stress, unspecified (F43.9). Initially, the project addresses the theoretical approach of the tort system in relation to the kinds of issues commonly faced in cases of psychological afflictions. Afterwards, the afflictions themselves will be accounted for in terms of what characterizes the afflictions and their respective diagnostic criteria according to ICD-10.The analysis aims to identify the factors, both legal and practical realities, which can influence the outcome of individual cases. Factors include the plaintiff’s predisposition, proposed effects capability of causing the claimed affliction, connections to the effect, such as time, triggering causes and physical injury. Furthermore, the analysis includes factors such as the lower limit, diagnosis and treatment prior to filing suit, the council of coroners, the consequences of individual afflictions in the tort system, and the relation between affliction and compensatory possibilities.
The factors on which recognition is either legally predicated or simply contribute to recognition were found to be largely based on theoretical medicinal knowledge of the afflictions. Therefore, any uncertainty relating to the cause of the affliction and lack of understanding is therefore reflected in the difficulties often associated with psychologic afflictions. It was found that no single factor in and of itself would be sufficient to ensure the plaintiff compensation for a sustained injury.Finally, a number the of issues identified throughout the project will be addressed for the purpose of discussing how the issues might be solved or alleviated. The addressed issues include the valuation of treatment of prior afflictions, the lower limit of recognizable afflictions, the term psychological afflictions and the distinguishing between physical and psychological in origin.