What is the state of stress management in the UK?

Anecdotally we might all know of friends and colleagues suffering from stress anxiety or depression. But to what extent are people suffering from stress or are they only under pressure? True stress is the inability (or perceived inability) to cope with the demands being made upon them; mostly when people say “I’m stressed out” they really mean that they are under strain or pressure but in fact they can cope. Using our definition of stress (which amounts to distress) mostly people are not truly stressed.

Some employers recognize that excessive pressure leads to anxiety, depression and stress and often take, as a first step, some training in stress relief and sometimes stress management training. Their employee assistance programmes often also include counselling support where necessary.

Such actions are helpful but do not address the root causes of problems and more enlightened managements engage in stress management programmes that aim at stress prevention rather than cure. These start with stress audits. Stress audits can be undertaken informally in small organisations but in larger ones almost certainly take the form of a stress management questionnaire which staff are invited to complete. The results are analysed and usually supplemented by the use of focus groups to validate the results and look for possible improvements. Risk factors can then be assessed and actions taken to eliminate or reduce the causes of stress in the organisation.