Impact of Psychological Stress on Workers: OSH Assignment Solution

This assignment addresses the critical issue of psychological stress in the workplace, examining its impact on employees and organizations. The solution begins by defining psychological stress and its consequences, such as depression, burnout, absenteeism, and reduced productivity. It then delves into the major causes of stress, including high workloads, long working hours, bullying, and lack of autonomy. Furthermore, the assignment explores the role of personality types, particularly Type A individuals, in experiencing workplace stress. Finally, it outlines various coping strategies, including emotion-focused, problem-focused, and self-care methods, to effectively manage and mitigate occupational stress. The solution is supported by relevant academic references.

Running head: OCCUPATION HEALTH AND SAFETY
OCCUPATION HEALTH AND SAFETY
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1OCCUPATION HEALTH AND SAFETY
Question 1
Psychological stress can result in feelings of depression, insecurity and exhaustion on a
worker, which further leads to occupational burnout, or a sense of hopelessness, tiredness and
dissatisfaction associated with the workplace. This also results in increased susceptibility to
illnesses further leading to workplace absenteeism, loss of work hours and reduced occupational
productivity. It also leads to increased levels of pessimism and discouragement among workers
resulting in high employee turnover rates (Leung, Liang & Olomolaiye, 2015).
Question 2
One of the major causes of psychological stress at work has been attributed to high
workloads, excessively long working hours and requirement to overcome challenging deadlines
since these leave little room for rest, recreation and personal space for workers. Further,
horizontal as well as vertical bullying has been attributed to cause psychological stress among
workers. Thirdly, lack of autonomy where worker’s have little opportunity to voice their opinion
may also cause psychological stress at the workplace (Ferri et al., 2016).
Question 3
Individuals with Type A personality have been known to play a major role in the
acquisition of psychological stress at the workplace due to their preoccupation with goal
achievement, multitasking, proactive work ethics and excessive criticism of self, resulting in
uncontrolled feelings of impatience, short-temperedness, competitiveness and imposition
pressures upon oneself when encountered with demanding deadlines (Čukić et al., 2015).

2OCCUPATION HEALTH AND SAFETY
Question 4
Firstly, administration of emotion focused coping strategies involving communicating
with friends and family as well as with organizational supervisors, can help to manage
occupational stress. Secondly, another beneficial method involves adoption of problem focuses
strategies involving identifying one’s stressors, researching on their health effects followed by
adherence to evidence based stress management procedures (Acquadro Maran et al., 2015).
Thirdly, occupational stress can also be managed by following self care coping strategies
encompassing mindfulness, self-reflection, relaxation, adequate sleep, nutritious diet
consumption and learning to differentiate between personal and professional responsibilities (Lu
et al., 2015).

3OCCUPATION HEALTH AND SAFETY
References
Acquadro Maran, D., Varetto, A., Zedda, M., & Ieraci, V. (2015). Occupational stress, anxiety
and coping strategies in police officers. Occupational medicine, 65(6), 466-473.
Čukić, I., Mõttus, R., Luciano, M., Starr, J. M., Weiss, A., & Deary, I. J. (2015). Do personality
traits moderate the manifestation of type 2 diabetes genetic risk?. Journal of
psychosomatic research, 79(4), 303-308.
Ferri, P., Guadi, M., Marcheselli, L., Balduzzi, S., Magnani, D., & Di Lorenzo, R. (2016). The
impact of shift work on the psychological and physical health of nurses in a general
hospital: a comparison between rotating night shifts and day shifts. Risk management and
healthcare policy, 9, 203.
Leung, M. Y., Liang, Q., & Olomolaiye, P. (2015). Impact of job stressors and stress on the
safety behavior and accidents of construction workers. Journal of Management in
Engineering, 32(1), 04015019.
Lu, D. M., Sun, N., Hong, S., Fan, Y. Y., Kong, F. Y., & Li, Q. J. (2015). Occupational stress
and coping strategies among emergency department nurses of China. Archives of
psychiatric nursing, 29(4), 208-212.