Abstract
The number of suicides per year in Japan had been above 30,000 for 14 years since 1998, which is a very serious trend and an important problem. Many working persons commit suicide, and so people are getting more interested in mental-health care of working persons. Employers are required to become aware whether their employees have mental problems or not, which is getting more and more important. The Ministry Health, Labour and Welfare of Japan informed of checklists which help employers to estimate causes and effects of mental disorder of their employees in 2011. Risk management is very important in enterprises, especially for mental health. Risk control for mental health is essential to employees as well as to employers. Compared with large companies, small and medium enterprises are relatively disadvantageous in risk control of mental-health problems. This is perhaps because small and medium enterprises are not able to locate occupational physicians effectively, and because employees in such enterprises tend to have not enough information with which they can protect themselves against mental stress. In order to improve risk control for mental health in small and medium enterprises, cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), especially internet-besd CBT, has potentialities. On the other hand, we need to pay attention to its limitations.
