Stress and psychosocial risks: some practical solutions

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Stress and psychosocial risks some practical
solutions

• Dr Eusebio Rial-Gonzalez
• Project Manager

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Overview

• Introduction to the Agency
• Psychosocial risks current situation
• Agency activities and publications
• Research review
• Identifying good practice
• Some practical solutions
• Tools and methods
• Success factors

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European Agency for Safety and Health at Work
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Agency Network Structure
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EU Focal Points
CC Focal Points
EEA EFTA Focal Points
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The Agencys aims and role

• Aims to make Europes workplaces safer, healthier
  and more productive
• Acts as a catalyst for developing, collecting,
  analysing and disseminating information that
  improves the state of occupational safety and
  health in Europe
• http//agency.osha.eu.int

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Psychosocial work environment stress

• Second biggest OSH problem in the EU
• Plus interaction with second-biggest problem
  back ache and MSDs in general
• Approximately 28 of workers affected (40M)
• Can be related to up to 50 of all absence
• Number of people affected has doubled in the last
  decade (HSC, GB). High in the public sector
• Estimated cost per year
• EU 20,000 million (EC, 2000)
• UK 3.7 billion (HSE 1995/96)

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Current situation
Workers reporting stress (by country)
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Stress in Spain

• IV Encuesta Nacional de Condiciones de Trabajo
  (data from late 1999)
• Short-term symptoms of stress

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Spain conditions by sector
Accident at work in previous 2 years
gt 3 stress symptoms
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Current situation intimidation 1
Workers reporting intimidation (by sector)
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Current situation intimidation 2
Workers reporting intimidation (by country)
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Current situation EU15 / CC12
Health outcomes (CC12 vs EU15)
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Current situation trends
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Current situation trends by country
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Needs identified by Member States

• Stress as top priority for action
• Psychosocial risks issues of definition and
  reporting, but clearly a problem
• Need to identify and disseminate practical
  solutions

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Stress research review (2000) key findings

• Limitations in contemporary research but enough
  scientific evidence to support
• Stress can be dealt with in the same way as other
  OSH issues
• Adapting the control cycle (already
  well-established for the assessment and
  management of physical risks) to the management
  of psychosocial risks.
• Practical examples of this approach applied
  already exist in the EU.
• Future research should concentrate on stress
  management interventions at the organisational
  level.

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Actions to prevent or reduce stress at work

• Treat like other workplace hazards
• Risk assessment and management
• Identify hazards
• Decide who might be harmed and how
• Evaluate the risk by
• Identifying what action is already being taken
• Deciding whether it is enough
• If it is not, deciding what more should be done
• Record the findings
• Review the assessment and check the impact of
  measures taken

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Stress prevention instruments and tools

• Psychosocial risks different in nature from
  physical risks (not tangible, interactions, etc.)
• More difficult to develop standardised, off the
  shelf solutions
• EU legislation focus should be on risk
  assessment and primary prevention
• Long research tradition, but few practical tools
• Need to develop user-friendly tools, especially
  for SMEs

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Identifying solutions

• Need to use tools that
• are valid and reliable
• fit the organisational climate/culture
• are sensitive to the context of the specific
  workplace risk assessment
• Some examples

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Work Positive prioritising organisational stress

• Health Education Board for Scotland Heath and
  Safety Authority (Ireland)
• Commended entry at the Agencys Good Practice
  Awards 2002
• Developed a user-friendly pack to guide
  organisations through a 5-step process
• Raising awareness, gaining and demonstrating
  commitment
• Benchmarking assessing the current situation
• Identifying the causes and assessing the risks
• Avoiding and reducing any risks identified
• Reviewing the situation

www.hebs.com/workpositive
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Work Positive benchmarking tool
Completed by coordinator before questionnaire
sent out
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Work Positive risk assessment questionnaire
3 pages 54 questions open response
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CoPsoQ (2000)

• Copenhagen Psychosocial Questionnaire
• Developed by AMI (DK), after studying 16 other
  questionnaires
• 3 versions
• Long 141 questions for research purposes
• Medium 95 to be used by work environment
  professionals (incl. software)
• Short 44 to be used by the workplace

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CoPsoQ
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CoPsoQ

• Questions about working conditions, mental and
  general health, and coping
• Thorough psychometric development
• Already used in many studies allows for
  comparisons to be made with national average
  (MS), and with age groups, job types, pay
  systems, etc.
• Spanish and other versions

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ISTAS-21 adapted from CoPsoQ

• Measuring only dimensions for which there is
  good scientific evidence of impact on health
• Adapted by
• Arbejdsmiljpinstitittet
• ISTAS
• Instituto Nacional de Seguridad e Higiene en el
  Trabajo
• Centre de Seguretat i Condicions de Salut en el
  Treball de Barcelona
• Universitat Pompeu Fabra
• Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
• Mutua Fraternidad Muprespa
• Gabinet Higia Salut i Treball
• Departament de Salut Laboral de Comissions
  Obreres de Catalunya (CONC).

www.istas.net/istas21
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Other examples WOCCQ

• WOrking Conditions and Control Questionnaire
  (Package)
• Developed at the University of Liège
• Validated in French and Dutch, also available in
  English
• Basic tool optional questionnaires to refine
  the diagnosis

www.woccq.be
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Other examples QPSNordic

• General Nordic Questionnaire, Lindstrom et al.
• Analysis at 3 levels
• Task
• Individual
• Social and organisational
• Two versions
• QPSNordic research, in-depth, 123 questions
• QPSNordic 34 practical tool, 34 questions
• Available in English, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian
  and Finnish

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QPSNordic 34
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QPSNordic
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SUVA checklists

• Simple, attractive checklists (4pp.)
• Self-assessment and space for control measures
• Also published support/reference documents
• Available in Italian, German and French

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SUVA checklists
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SUVA checklists
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SUVA checklists
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More than just tools process issues 1

• Example soft guidelines developed at AMI for
  the COPSOQ
• Never start a survey unless there is a clear
  intention to take action
• All results are anonymous and participation is
  completely voluntary
• Workers should have the right to see and discuss
  all results

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More than just tools process issues 2

1. The results should be considered as a common tool
   for dialogue and future development not as a
   judgment or a school report!
2. All parties workers, middle management and
   management should participate in, and be
   committed to, the whole process

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Identifying practical solutions

• Agencys European Week 2002 Stress, bullying,
  violence
• Raising awareness and disseminating practical
  solutions
• Factsheets
• Case studies report
• Good Practice awards

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Agency publications factsheets

• Factsheets available on
• Work-related stress
• Bullying at work
• Violence at work
• Information from the Agency on stress at work
• Practical advice for workers on tackling stress
  at work
• Strategies to tackle psychosocial issues
• Research on work-related stress

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Agency publications - magazine
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Agency publications - reports
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Case studies report examples include

• Regulatory approaches
• Non-regulatory interventions
• Campaigns
• Guidance
• Sector approaches
• National and regional authority initiatives
• Workplace examples
• Collective agreements

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Good Practice Awards European Week 2002
psychosocial risks

• Examples
• 11 stress prevention
• 4 violence
• 5 bullying
• Criteria
• Tackling risks at source
• Real improvements
• Sustainability
• Consultation
• gt just legal compliance
• Transferability

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Stress prevention in an old peoples home Spain
(1) how

• Cooperation management, trade unions local
  insurance company
• Risk assessment of the work and a staff
  questionnaire
• Problems found included
• High work load
• Lack of information
• Lack of decision-making responsibility
• Little possibility of promotion
• Unforeseen events/changes of plan
• Physical work conditions and
  physical effort

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Stress prevention in an old peoples home Spain
(2) solutions

• Providing lifting aids, hoists
• Staff training to deal with emotional stress
• Clear definitions of content of tasks and
  responsibilities, in an agreement
• Specifying functions and competencies of nursing
  assistants e.g drug dispensing
• Increase staffing levels during peak hours
• Communication protocol for risks
• Increasing worker autonomy, discretion
• Promoting worker participation
• Often low or zero cost solutions!

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Good practice award winners I

• Call centre in Germany including stress
  prevention measures at the design stage
• Preventive measures
• Staff participation, job rotation, task
  completion, scope, short breaks, training,
  improvements in work environment

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Good practice award winners II

• Petrochemicals company in Scotland
• During a plant commissioning project
• Effective employee involvement
  multi-disciplinary project team formed, including
  an external expert
• top five stressors identified and controls
  identified

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Success factors 1

• What we can learn from experience
• Risk assessment is the key the first step
• Context-specific solutions
• Thorough planning and a stepwise approach
• Staff involved in identifying problems and
  developing solutions
• Combination of measures covering anticipation,
  prevention, intervention, support and evaluation,
  with main focus on collective prevention measures

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Success factors 2

• Involvement commitment from staff, their
  representatives and management essential for
  long-term sustainability
• Solutions do not have to be expensive (sometimes
  low or zero cost), but there must be management
  commitment to take action
• Any outside expertise must be competent
  experienced practitioners and evidence-based
  solutions
• May require liaison with external bodies
  police, judiciary, local community (violence)

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Summary

• Psychosocial risks less tangible, not so
  straight-forward
• Tools for risk assessment already available and
  tested
• Variety of tools from complex, research-led
  instruments to simple checklists
• No easy fix or recipe for interventions
  Context-specific solutions
• Collaborative process for identifying and
  tackling risks

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Further information

• European Agencys web feature on European Week
  2002 http//osha.eu.int/ew2002
• European Agencys Research on Work-related Stress
  (EN and IT) http//agency.osha.eu.int/publications
  /reports/203/en

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• Thank you
• http//agency.osha.eu.int
• Eusebio Rial-Gonzalez
• rial_at_osha.eu.int