Work related stress – a major occupational health issue

Background: Psychological stress is a major cause of lost working days in the world and can lead to stress related disorders among the productive age group. Knowledge on the impact burden of work related stress and the stressors like physical, psycho social environment is important in improving the mental health of the working population. Objectives: This study was done with the objectives of assessing the burden of work related stress and its risk factors among various working population. Methods: This study was carried out as a community based cross sectional study among different occupations like doctors, police personnel, IT professionals, bank employees and teachers in the field practice area of department of community medicine using standardized questionnaires USDAW and PSS – 10 item questionnaires by personal interview after getting informed consent. Results: This study was done among 415 working population from different occupations and the study revealed moderately high prevalence of work stress among all occupations but medical and paramedical professions showed more than other occupations which was statistically significant. The stressors significantly associated with work related stress were physical environment, shift work, inadequate break times, lack of control on their work, repetitive work and overcrowding. Conclusion: The findings of the study suggest that the physical and psychosocial environment is not conducive in many of the occupations. There is an urgent need for the employers to take care of the felt needs of the working population an increase the awareness to reduce the future burden of stress related disorders and to promote the mental health of the workers. What this paper adds?? 1. Increasing trend of Workplace related stress 2. To assess and compare the burden and risk factors associated with workplace related stress among different occupations 3. Surprisingly Software professionals had less stress and teaching and nursing professionals had maximum stress in this study 4. This study included various occupations which was very less done by other Indian studies 5. Awareness on stress management is the basic requirement in all occupations.