What is occupational stress?
Whenever we deal with the word occupational, we are talking about work, employment, occupation, source of income and related terms. When we get busy discussing the pathologies of occupation, one of the most prominent is the stress.
Stress is understood as a set of disturbances or psychological and organic instability caused by various stimuli ranging from weather conditions to emotions and working conditions. At the base of understanding the concept of stress is the imbalance, in this case, in the relationship between worker and occupation. It is understood, then, occupational stress as the table of responses poorly suited to physical and emotional stimulation resulting from the demands of the work environment, the capacities required to perform it and the worker's conditions. In some cases, untreated occupational stress can lead to burnout syndrome, characterized by physical and psychological exhaustion as a result of work.
What can trigger occupational stress?
There are many stimuli that can trigger stress, including being exposed to conditions such as lack of material resources, physical and psychological demands higher than that corresponding to the function, work environments with problems of interpersonal relationships or that do not guarantee the health, well-being and safety of the worker.
What are the main types of occupational stressors?
Some authors usually divide stressors into three categories: work demand, incompatibility of roles and material conditions of the occupation. Demand for work can be an occupational stressor when it exceeds adequate levels for maintenance workers' health, such as long hours, excessively fast pace, variable shifts, overtime, etc. In the case of role mismatch, we are dealing with organizational issues such as the difficulty many companies have in having good descriptions of the attributions and rights of each position, which ends up making it impossible for the worker to have full control of their functions and rights. Finally, material conditions relate to the work environment: climatic conditions, organization, lighting, hygiene and aspects such as visual and auditory pollution in the workplace.
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What are the possible treatments?
Whenever it is a condition that does not only involve the individual's illness, but the problem of their work environment and their attributions, it is recommended that interventions be carried out at three different levels: at the primary level, one should seek to reduce stimuli stressors, modifying the work environment as much as possible, seeking to define occupations and rights of each worker, such as their hours and functions. At this level, it is possible to think of forms of psychological support, from which the subject can reframe his relationship with work.
At a second level of action, one should seek to improve the subjects' response to the work environment, with a focus on stressful events. In this sense, psychotherapeutic interventions seek to understand and transform the subject's relationship with stressors. One of the common forms of action in this regard are group dynamics, relaxation techniques, meditation, acupuncture, psychotherapy, etc. It is noteworthy that, as these are techniques used when occupational stress is already installed, they may be less effective than the primarily suggested transformations, because they do not work on the source of stress, but on their effects.
Finally, there is the attention to individuals suffering from the condition of occupational stress who suffer from the symptoms of imbalance. This form of care should be focused on rebalancing physical and psychological functioning through the action of multidisciplinary teams, with occupational therapists, psychologists, doctors, etc., who constantly need to destroy the barriers of prejudice to enter the field of companies, becoming a possibility of alliance between work and health mental.
Juliana Spinelli Ferrari
Brazil School Collaborator
Graduated in Psychology from UNESP - Universidade Estadual Paulista
Brief psychotherapy course by FUNDEB - Foundation for the Development of Bauru
Master's Student in School Psychology and Human Development at USP - University of São Paulo
