Essay - Assessing Stress at Work the National Institute for Occupational Safety...

Assessing Stress at Work

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) is a Federal Agency responsible for conducting and making recommendations regarding the prevention of illness and injury at work. NIOSH has determined that stress in the workplace creates a signific*****nt health risk, which is detrimental to the psychological and physical well be*****g of humans exposed to it. Reducing stress in the workplace has been a m*****jor goal of NIOSH. According to NIOSH, aside from psychological symp*****ms, such as anxiety, depression, short tempers ***** irritability. Stress can also cause physical symptoms such as aching muscles, loss of appetite, restless sleep, and exhaustion, migraine headaches and high blood pressure (NIOSH, Pub. 99-101).

***** to the Bureau for Labor Statistics, stress at work is a major cause of time lost from ***** job and a major factor in many Workman's Compensation Claims (BLS, 1996). One-fourth of employees view their jobs as the number one ***** source of stress in their lives (NNL, 1991). A survey by Princeton Research Associates found that three-fourths of employees believe the worker has more on-the-job ***** than a generation ago (PSRA, 1997). Problems at work are more strongly associated with ***** complaints than are any other life stressor, ranking above financial problems or family problems (SPMIC, 1992).

According to the Encyclopedia of Occupational Health and Safety (EOHS, 1995), job stress is often confused with challenges. However, a ch*****llenging ***** is not necessarily a stressful *****. Ch*****llenge energizes ***** motivates an individual and meeting a challenge gives a sense of s*****tisfaction and accomplishment. Individual differences play an important role in determ*****ing what constitutes a stressful situ*****tion or the degree ***** stress that a person may experience from it. However, certain *****ing conditions have been identified ***** cause stress in most people, regardless of ***** differences (EOHS, 1995). Excessive workloads and conflicting expectations are a key source of work-related *****. The effects of stress in ***** work place cannot be denied. Job-related stress costs companies money in terms ***** decreased production, medical expenses, and lost time.

***** are three steps ***** resolving job-related stress in the **********. The first step is ***** identify the problem. The scope and ***** of the ***** must be determ*****ed in order to take proactive measures to control them. Data ***** be collected ***** employee perceptions of ***** job *****, perceived levels of stress, health, and satisfaction. It must ***** ***** the sources of this stress. The second step is to design ***** implement an intervention strategy to ei*****r eliminate the *****ful situations or to give ***** a w*****y to cope with them. The third step is to evaluate the effectiveness of the intervention strategy. The purpose of this research will be ***** create a survey that can ***** administered to workers in a work setting to determine the levels of stress being **********, and the sources of this stress. This survey will be administered once in the *****ginning of ***** evaluation process and again six months after the new program is