Risk Factors Of Stress In The Workplace

The major factors of job stress are job design, work tasks, work roles and interpersonal relationships. A systematic program of research on the health consequences of stressful life events was initiated by Holmes and Rahe, who developed a standardized, paper-and-pencil inventory of life experiences, the Social Readjustment Rating Scale. Hackman and Lawer developed and tested a conceptual framework specifying the conditions under which jobs will facilitate the development of internal motivation for effective performance in 1971.

Klassen observed that low levels of congruence with the three life domains (home, work, and peer relationships) were interactively linked to violent behavior among adult psychiatric patients. Greenberger, Steinberg, and Vaux for instance, found that low levels of congruence within each of three life domains (home, work, and peer relationships) were associated with health and behavioral disorders among adolescents.

Spielberger et al classified police stressors into three categories: administrative and professional pressures, physical and psychological dangers, and lack of support within and outside the police organization. There are many challenges in the work environments, such as, competition, continuous technological development, lack of space, lack of time, more uncontrollable factors, conflicting demands from organizational stakeholders increased use of participatory management and computerization greater uncertainty, and others have resulted in higher occupational stress. Police officers also experience preeminent heights of stress, anxiety, and irritability. They are thrilling with the uneasiness of criminals, the prevention and examination of crimes, and the conservation of public order. Increased alcohol consumption, smoking, and drug abuse are additional negative consequences that occur as a result of stress in their workplace.

Peter et al found that work stress explained the effects of shift work on cardiovascular risk factors such as hypertension and atherogenic lipids. In Europe, occupational stress is considered as a risk-assessable disease. In the pursuit for organizational excellence, sometimes managers, officers and workers need to work under highly stressful circumstances, as a result they have been found to be experiencing high stress in the manufacturing sector. Work-related stress has aroused growing interest across Europe in recent years due to use of new information and communications technologies, growing diversity in the workplace and an increased mental workload. Current stress management programs provide approaches to dealing with stress in general or are targeted for acute incidents, i. e., critical incident management program and this approach may reduce the effectiveness of stress interventions for police officers.

Job stress can be defined as the harmful physical and emotional responses that occur when the requirements of the job do not match the capabilities, resources, or needs of the worker, which lead to poor health and even injury. Puttonen et al proposed occupational stress as one of the pathways mediating the association between shift work and cardiovascular disease (CVD). Higher levels of stress are related to an increased risk of reporting suboptimal job satisfaction and quality of life (QoL) and the magnitude of these associations varied depending on age, gender, and rank, highlighting the need for stress-management training of police officers in Greece. It has been found that the police officers got higher stress points from the Mayerson Stress Sources Scale when physical environment, job, social stress and self-expression are considered, and they were tended to have increased problems and psychological symptoms are highly prevalent among Turkish Police officers. Non-day shift workers may be exposed to more stressful events in this cohort and the interventions to reduce or manage police stress that are tailored by shift may be considered. Police officers, in particular, appear to be exposed to a higher level of stressors and exhibited greater risk of CVD and a more adverse CVD risk factor profi.

Stress is a dynamic condition in which the police department faces with constraint and strains. Stress is the discomfort of an individual. Stress is a pressure condition causing hardship. It is an internal phenomenon of mental attitude. Stress is generally believed to have deleterious effect on health and performance. But a minimum level of stress is necessary for effective functioning and peak performance. It is the individual’s reaction to stress which makes all the difference. Stress is a mental, emotional or physical reaction resulting from an individual’s response to environmental pressure. It refers to pressures that executives feel in life.

Different persons respond to stressful situation in different ways. It is important to distinguish between pressure and stress. Pressure is motivating, stimulating and energizing. But when pressure exceeds the ability to cope, stress is produced. Stress is an external force or pressure on the human mind. One should try to transform stress into vitality, energy into power and knowledge into wisdom. Stress can have serious consequences on both health and work performance. In terms of health, the current belief among many practitioners is that 50% to 70% of all physical illness is related to stress.