-
Views
-
Cite
Cite
Jonathan Houdmont, Tom Cox, Amanda Griffiths, Reply, Occupational Medicine, Volume 61, Issue 2, March 2011, Pages 136–137, https://doi.org/10.1093/occmed/kqq201
Close - Share Icon Share
Extract
Dr Preece questions the omission of the annual National Health Service (NHS) staff survey in the review of workforce surveys that included a measure of work-related stress [1]. The reasons lie in our stated intent to report exclusively on surveys that were representative of the British workforce. The NHS staff surveys fall short in two respects. First, they are restricted to an English rather than British workforce. Second, their coverage is restricted to a single occupational sector.
With regard to the issue of self-reported data, Dr Preece observes that it is difficult to measure work-related psychological morbidity and that the word ‘stress’ has limited value as a term to describe this morbidity. We agree that many approaches to the self-reported measurement of work-related stress are problematic, focusing on a restricted set of antecedents and correlates of the stress experience. We propose that only a case definition informed by transactional stress theory can offer a valid and reliable insight into the work-related stress construct. Such an approach conceptualises work-related stress in terms of a process comprising (i) antecedent factors, namely exposure to aspects of poor work design, management, and organization (i.e. psychosocial hazards) known to be associated with ill-health outcomes; (ii) cognitive-perceptual processes that give rise to the emotional experience of stress and (iii) correlates of that experience, both individual (e.g. psychological and physical health outcomes, and health-risk behaviours) and organizational (e.g. absence, reduced organizational commitment and morale, elevated intention to leave). However, such an approach is unlikely to prove popular among survey designers given the ‘efficiencies’ in assessment afforded by (i) the increasingly popular single-item approach to the measurement of work-related stress and (ii) simplistic case definitions requiring respondents to indicate whether their work has resulted in ‘stress’. This efficiency-based driver of choice of case definition highlights the imperative for research that seeks to establish the validity and reliability of approaches to the measurement of work-related stress. Researchers and practitioners might then make well-informed decisions on their acceptance or otherwise.
