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Occupational health management of work-related stress: guidelines versus practice
- Source :
- Occupational Medicine (Oxford, England)
- Publication Year :
- 2021
- Publisher :
- Oxford University Press (OUP), 2021.
-
Abstract
- Background Work-related stress, anxiety and depression (WRSAD) are common, overlapping mental health problems burdened with major medical, occupational, institutional and societal implications. Current occupational health (OH) management of WRSAD is based on clinical and managerial guidelines and individual risk assessment. Aims The study sought to identify patterns of OH advice in WRSAD and the relationships between the OH advice, available evidence, experience and expertise of the OH doctors (OHDs). Methods A retrospective cross-sectional analysis of 101 first-time OH consultations for WRSAD by nine OHDs. Results The three most common OH interventions included follow-up OH consultations, adjusted duties and referrals for counselling. All OHDs preferred a light-touch approach but the less experienced and qualified OHDs were more proactive and prescriptive. Conclusions In the absence of a specific occupational medical guideline for the management of WRSAD, the OH interventions may be guided by clinical guidelines, individual risk assessment, the client’s circumstances or the experience, expertise and preferences of the OHDs. In the study group, OH interventions were under-utilized and not consistently applied. Our findings support the argument for OH guideline for WRSAD to improve the consistency and effectiveness of OH interventions. This is important given the scale of the problem and the recent increase in WRSAD during the COVID-19 pandemic.
- Subjects :
- medicine.medical_specialty
Psychological intervention
Medical guideline
Occupational safety and health
Occupational Stress
03 medical and health sciences
0302 clinical medicine
Mental health problems
medicine
Humans
AcademicSubjects/MED00640
030212 general & internal medicine
Pandemics
Retrospective Studies
Original Paper
SARS-CoV-2
business.industry
Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health
COVID-19
Guideline
Mental health
Cross-Sectional Studies
Family medicine
Scale (social sciences)
occupational health
work-related stress
Anxiety
medicine.symptom
Risk assessment
business
030217 neurology & neurosurgery
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 14718405 and 09627480
- Volume :
- 71
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Occupational Medicine
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....cd381e687c18e339052cf539e76c35d9