Job Stress, Coping with

The psychological process that is involved in dealing with job stressors in order to reduce strain or negative health effects is called coping. More specifically, coping with job stress refers to the things employees do to handle the stressors they encounter in their work roles. Coping with job stress involves the interplay of the employee and his or her job environment or work setting that is appraised as stressful. Interventions that focus on improving coping with job stress at the individual level include education activities, relaxation programs, cognitive-behavioral programs, and employee skills training. Interventions that focus on the organization seek to reduce strain by changing and improving macrolevel factors operating within organizations (e.g., job redesign, selection and training policies, organizational development). Generally speaking, individual-based interventions particularly relaxation programs and cognitive-behavioral programs, seem to be effective in reducing employee strain (i.e., burnout, distress, depressed mood, anxiety, and psychosomatic symptoms), whereas the effectiveness of organization-based strategies is still to be demonstrated unambiguously. Generally speaking, it seems that employees seem to favor problem-focused coping instead of emotion-focused coping. As a general rule, the more active, problem-focused, and control-oriented the coping strategy, the less (mental) health symptoms and the higher employee well-being. In contrast, emotion-focused strategies as well as escape-oriented or avoidant strategies are generally associated with poor (mental) health and unwell-being. The measurement of coping is fraught with problems that are partly imputed to the fact that almost exclusively self-report questionnaires are used. To date, no generally accepted measure exists to assess coping in an occupational context.