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Coping with Stress at Work

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Management and Leadership – A Guide for Clinical Professionals

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Abstract

Stress in the workplace affects everyone at some stage in their lives. Stress in itself can be used to promote productivity. However, there is a bell shaped curve relationship with a point when passed, the stressful input imparts a negative impact upon performances. Individuals react differently to stress. Personality traits and gender influence both our response and adaptation to stress. In the healthcare industry, stress is recognised to emanate from both within as well as from peers, colleagues, superiors, patients and events. Identifying stress is of paramount importance to implement coping mechanisms. These mechanisms can be initiated by the employer or the employee. Group debriefings and regular individual appraisals are powerful tools for managers to use especially in the face of major disasters. Exercise/activities and humour are some of the common methods individuals use to reduce or prevent stress. There is no ‘best’ exercise or activity other than one chosen by the user for the satisfaction this will produce for them. Humour whether self induced or group derived is a cheap, fast and burgeoning area of stress manipulation. Recent attention has spread to dietary manipulation including the use of probiotics which show great promise in improving mental and physical well being.

Life is not a matter of having good cards, but of playing a poor hand well

—Robert Louis Stevenson

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Suggested Further Reading on Stress Assessment and Management

  1. NHS stress at work: http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/stress-anxiety-depression/Pages/workplace-stress.aspx

  2. NHS mood self assessment: http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/stress-anxiety-depression/Pages/mood-self- assessment.aspx

  3. American Institute of Stress: http://www.stress.org/self-assessment/

  4. NIOSH Generic Job Stress Questionnaire: http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/topics/workorg/detail088.html

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Maternal and Fetal Medicine, King Edward Memorial Hospital for Women, 374 Bagot Road, Subiaco, 6006, City of Perth, WA, Australia

    Christopher Griffin FRACP, FRANZCOG CMFM

  2. School of Women’s and Infants’ Health, the University of Western Australia, City of Perth, WA, Australia

    Christopher Griffin FRACP, FRANZCOG CMFM

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  1. Christopher Griffin FRACP, FRANZCOG CMFM
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Correspondence to Christopher Griffin FRACP, FRANZCOG CMFM .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Neonatal Paediatrics, KEM Hospital for Women, Perth, West Australia, Australia

    Sanjay Patole

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Griffin, C. (2015). Coping with Stress at Work. In: Patole, S. (eds) Management and Leadership – A Guide for Clinical Professionals. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-11526-9_10

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-11526-9_10

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-11525-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-11526-9

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