Prevalence of Work Stress among Private and Public Sector Employees in Delhi: A Differential Study

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Background: Stress is a term which is entangled with every stage of our lives — whether it is our workplace or our personal life. For the workplace, it may be the pressure to fulfill daily targets, deadline, must do project which arrives without warning, shared assignment or anything else which can generate stress. Lack of promotion, training and support from superiors lead to stress which in turn leads to higher rates of absenteeism, low productivity, low quality of product, customer dissatisfaction etc. Physical and mental health of an individual as well as organization’s effectiveness can have the effect of work stress. Hence, the current study aimed to assess the prevalence of one of the mental health issues, i.e., stress, among private and public sector employees in Delhi, India. Methods: Purposive sampling technique was used to collect data from the private (n=30) and public sector employees (n=30). The level of stress was measured using Occupational Stress Index Scale (OSI Scale) questionnaire and demographic information sheet was used to collect various demographic information which includes age, gender, type of family, marital status, duration of service, salary, type of employment, educational qualification etc. Data was analyzed using SPSS (version 20.0) software. The chi-square test was used to find the relationship between categorical variables, pearson correlation coefficient was used to find the correlation between continuous variables according to distribution of the data. A p value less than 0.05 was considered as statistically significant. Results: The mean age of the participants was 38.62 (SD=8.79) years. According to OSI Scale, 13.3% employees (including both sectors) had low level of stress, 75% had moderate level of stress and 11.7% had high level of stress. Further, private sector employees had more work stress than the public sector employees. The results also indicate that Role Overload, Role Ambiguity, Role Conflict, Poor Participation, Powerlessness, Intrinsic Improvement, Low Status and Strenuous Working Condition had a significant relationship with the sector of employment. Conclusion: It was found that high level of stress was prevalent among employees in both the sectors — public and private. However, private sector employees were exposed to more professional stressors, which in turn created more occupational stress for them. It would be prudential for employers to initiate some training programmes related to physical and mental well-being, which can help enhance performance of employees and improve overall productivity of the organisation.