The role of workplace health promotion in addressing job stress (original) (raw)
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Work-related stress and health—risks, mechanisms and countermeasures
Scandinavian Journal of Work, Environment & Health, 2006
Work-related stress and health-risks, mechanisms and countermeasures Profound changes occurring in the economic, political, technological, and social landscape have transformed the world. And because the world has changed, also the world of work has changed (1). The most striking development is the changing nature of work itself-from physical to mental. Another major development is that the significance of time and time-related activities in work has increased. Furthermore, due to the systematic intensification of work, the psychosocial workload has increased. Accordingly, today, for many employees, work poses primarily mental and emotional demands. At the same time, job and work security have decreased. Moreover, work and family life have become blended. It is now generally recognized that, as a result of these developments, work-related stress has become a major public health problem with serious consequences for the individual, companies, and society. Although the concept of stress is very popular, both in the academic world and in the everyday world, it has been difficult to agree on the exact scientific definition. According to Kristensen et al (2) stress is an individual, psychophysiological, and subjective state, characterized by a combination of high arousal and displeasure. In this issue of the Scandinavian Journal of Work, Environment & Health, in line with this definition, Siegrist & Rödel (3) specify stress as a latent construct that indicates a state of elevated activation of the autonomic nervous system with coordinated manifestations at the affective, cognitive, and behavioral levels. To study the health aspects of stressful work characteristics, general theoretical work-stress models, like those for job strain (4) and effort-reward imbalance (5), have been developed and tested. Also in this issue of the Scandinavian Journal of Work Environment & Health, several papers (3, 6, 7, 8) have used these models and more-recent conceptualizations, such as organizational injustice, to explore the association between work stress and health. Work stress thus refers to the aspects of work design, organization, and management, and their social and organizational contexts, that have the potential to cause harm to employee health. This paradigm, in addition to the conventional physicochemical approach, forms an essential part of contemporary occupational health research (6). The aim of this special issue of the Scandinavian Journal of Work, Environment & Health is to clarify the knowledge and understanding of the risks and mechanisms of work-related stress and to review current challenges and some approaches for the prevention of work-related stress.
Stress and Health at the Workplace-A Review of the Literature
This review of the literature gives information about work stress, factors in the working environment that cause stressful situations and negative health consequences of the workplace stress. Stressors are pointed out in details that lead to stress at the workplace. Approaches to the stress are explained and most famous models of the stress are assessed critically in this review. This article highlights the work stress and its adverse effects on the physical and mental health of an employee. Finally, recommendations for future research are given and areas are highlighted where there is need of more empirical research.
The Presidential Perspective Bob Sinclair 7 A Message from the Membership Committee Mo Wang 8 Wellness Programs Leigh Schmidt 8 OHP Careers from a Health Psychology Perspective James McCubbin 9 NIOSH OHP Activities Edward Hitchcock 10 Editor's Welcome Note from the Editor This, our third newsletter, follows the APA/NIOSH/SOHP Work, Stress, and Health Conference that was held in Washington, DC from March 6 to 8. Two articles cover the conference. Wes Baker, the Conference Coordina-tor, wrote a short piece outlining some of the conference highlights. In addition, Jonathan Houdmont and I wrote an article describing an important meeting that took place at the conference—this article is our first of what we anticipate will be many Across the Pond features. At the meeting leaders of the Society for Occupational Health Psychology and the European Academy for Occupational Health Psychology developed plans to coordinate member benefits. A month after the WSH conference, the annual meetin...
Job stress : causes, impact and interventions in the health and community services sector
2006
The overall aim of this study was to provide WorkCover with contemporary evidence based options for the effective prevention and management of psychological injuries. While the key notion that an organisational approach to stress prevention/management is supported, the model presented in this report has been assessed as being generic, providing a broad framework from which it is now necessary to develop a practical improvement program that can be trialled in the workplace.
Health Education Journal, 2003
This paper focuses on the theory and practice of stress management and stress prevention with a particular emphasis on work-related stress (WRS). Two models of stress (organisational and psychological/ cognitive) are included that can be used to underpin interventions at organisational and individual levels. It is argued that there is an increasing demand for stress management interventions in the workplace due to the Health and Safety Executive taking a lead and recommending that employers take WRS seriously. In addition the increase in stress litigation has persuaded some employers to address the issue although others have done so due to a genuine concern for their staff. It is predicted that Health Promotion Specialists may find WRS and stress prevention an expanding niche area to work in. Its inclusion on postgraduate training programmes would benefit not only the individual Health Promotion Specialist, but possibly society as a whole.
BMC Public Health, 2017
Background: Adequate implementation of work-related stress management interventions can reduce or prevent work-related stress and sick leave in organizations. We developed a multifaceted integral stress-prevention strategy for organizations from several sectors that includes a digital platform and collaborative learning network. The digital platform contains a stepwise protocol to implement work-related stress-management interventions. It includes stress screeners, interventions and intervention providers to facilitate access to and the selection of matching workrelated stress-management interventions. The collaborative learning network, including stakeholders from various organizations, plans meetings focussing on an exchange of experiences and good practices among organizations for the implementation of stress prevention measures. This paper describes the design of an integral stressprevention strategy, Stress Prevention@Work, and the protocol for the evaluation of: 1) the effects of the strategy on perceived stress and work-related outcomes, and 2) the barriers and facilitators for implementation of the strategy. Methods: The effectiveness of Stress Prevention@Work will be evaluated in a cluster controlled trial, in a large healthcare organization in the Netherlands, at six and 12 months. An independent researcher will match teams on working conditions and size and allocate the teams to the intervention or control group. Teams in the intervention group will be offered Stress Prevention@Work. For each intervention team, one employee is responsible for applying the strategy within his/her team using the digital platform and visiting the collaborative learning network. Using a waiting list design, the control group will be given access to the strategy after 12 months. The primary outcome is the employees' perceived stress measured by the stress subscale of the Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale (DASS-21). Secondary outcome measures are job demands, job resources and the number of preventive stress measures implemented at the team level. Alongside the trial, a process evaluation, including barriers and facilitators of the implementation of Stress Prevention@Work, will be conducted in one healthcare organisation.
Individual Differences on Job Stress and Related Ill Health
Open Access Macedonian Journal of Medical Sciences, 2014
Citation: Stefanovska Petkovska M, Velik Stefanovska V, Bojadziev M. Individual Differences on Job Stress and Related Ill Health. Maced J Med Sci. 2014 Mar 15; 7(1):147-153. http://dx.
Occupational Stress: A Review on Conceptualisations, Causes and Cure
Economic Insights – Trends and Challenges, 2013
Given the complex nature of the concept - occupational stress (also known as work or job stress), it appears a daunting task reaching a unified definition of work stress because of the acknowledged fact that a singular approach may not be able to encompass the breadth of the phenomenon. To this end, the purpose of this paper is to provide a general review of some of the challenges surrounding the conceptuality of occupational stress in literature. Subsequently, the established knowledge regarding the nature and causes of occupational stress were examined in light of the conceptual typology of Murphy (1995) and Michie (2002) that portrays various sources of workplace stress which has been categorized as emanating from the context and content of work. These stress sources are consequentially known to produce dire organisational and extra-organisational outcomes such as low morale, poor performance, career uncertainty, absenteeism, health problems, work-life conflict, turnover and other reverses that undermine competitive objectives of business. As solutions, stress curative measures are discussed to assist managers to understand the significance of providing effective stress management interventions that can enhance employee well-being and organisational productivity.