A review of work-related stress detection, assessment, and analysis on-field

Abstract

With the rising concept of Industry 5.0, the worker's needs and well-being are placed at the center of the production process. This new human-centered approach will let the industrial sector reach many social goals besides employment and growth. Working in an unhealthy workplace can lead to stress, frustration, and worry. Moreover, the operator's well-being and performance could be affected and compromised by high mental demand due to the increase in production complexity. As a result, work-related stress has grown to be one of the major health issues, and new tools and methods for stress detection need to be researched and developed. However, the detection and assessment of mental stress in real settings is still an open challenge. Within working contexts, the most widespread assessment methods are subjective evaluations based on self-rating questionnaires whereas objective evaluations or multi-modal approaches are mainly used in controlled environments. This paper proposes a systematic review of the research works related to stress detection on-field in working environments. Although there are many research papers on stress detection in controlled laboratory conditions, the number of studies examining this topic in a working context is very limited. A descriptive and detailed analysis provides an extensive overview of the current state of the art. Finally, the paper addresses open issues, challenges, and future research directions for stress detection in working environments.