Stress Intervention at the Organizational Level

Abstract

There is now ample evidence that psychosocial stressors have considerable impact (strain) on the health and well-being of individuals operating within an organizational context. Given this reality, one might well ask: Can remedial action be taken either to prevent individual workers from experiencing strain and/or to help them recover from same? Of course, one might argue that the state-of-the-art knowledge about relationships between psychosocial stressors and strains, as well as about the processes linking to two, is still insufficient to justify action at this point, that such efforts would be premature. Then again, one might equally argue that experimental intervention is warranted even while research on such relationships continues, since the level(s) of strain evidenced in the normal workplace is on the rise and obviously affecting increasing numbers of workers as time goes on. Of course, one would also want to monitor any adverse effects of such experimental remedial efforts towards alleviating strain, thus gaining knowledge which might increase our present understanding of stress-strain relationships in the work setting.