Assessment and treatment strategies for occupational stress

Interventions for occupational stress can be divided up into three types, known as primary, secondary and tertiary level interventions (Cox and Cox 

1 Gather information. Information can be gathered from a range of sources, including managerial and supervisor reports, work records, sickness absence statistics, disciplinary records, medical case notes and a face-to-face interview with the employee to establish the nature of the 

Assess the severity of the work-related distress and disability. There is a wide range of formal psychometric tests available to assist in this process. Indeed, a whole industry has developed around the production of occupational and clinical assessment measures. It is recommended that self-report measures are used to measure stress, since the individual s appraisal of their situation is of primary importance in the stress reaction. Some of the most frequently used measures of distress include measures of anxiety such as the Beck Anxiety Inventory (Beck et al. 

measures of depression such as the Beck Depression Inventory (Beck and Steer 1987), measures of depression and anxiety such as the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (Zigmond and Snaith 1983) and more general measures of mental-ill health such as the Crown-Crisp Inventory (Crown and Crisp 1979) and the General Health Questionnaire (Goldberg and Williams 1988). 

Also commonly used are measures of work performance (Broadbent et al 1982 Houston and Allt 1997 Spurgeon and Harrington 1989), job satisfaction (Brook et al 1988 James and James 1989 Loher et al. 1985 Warr et al. 1979) and the Occupational Stress Indicator (Cooper et al 

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