Work-Related Stress and Coping Strategies: A Systematic Literature Review

Farah Shazlin Johari

doi:10.6007/ijarbss/v10-i6/7469

Abstract

While the issue of work-related stress has gained increasing attention as an important construct in Western literature, coping strategies concurrently have never been comprehensively reviewed in Asian tradition. The purposes of this review are to investigate work-related stressors across occupations and coping strategies used by these various occupations in reduction the stressful environment. The reviewed articles were obtained from three main databases; Web of Science, Scopus and Medline. Keywords including “stress”, “work-related stress”, “work stress”, “occupational stress”, coping strategies”, “coping skills”, “coping”, and “coping mechanisms” were resulted from 14 articles that met the specified criteria. Main stressors identified in this review including workload, role ambiguity, responsibility, lack of job control, poor physical environment, conflict, interpersonal relationship and management. While, common coping strategies were utilized by employees were problem-focused coping, emotion-focused coping and coping resources. The present evidence is limited, and numerous research is needed on stress and coping strategies in the future to broaden its impact on work and health-related outcomes.

Highlights

For several decades, a plethora of stress studies have been dominating in the Western tradition
The definition of work-related stress was first defined by World Health Organization (WHO) as an employee’s reaction whenever they are challenged by assigned job responsibilities that do not correspond to their knowledge, skills and abilities (WHO, 1948)
The keywords in the titles and abstracts were used in the search process including “stress”, “work-related stress”, “work stress”, “occupational stress”, “coping strategies”, coping skills”, “coping”, “cope” and “coping mechanisms”

Summary

Introduction

A plethora of stress studies have been dominating in the Western tradition. The definition of work-related stress was first defined by World Health Organization (WHO) as an employee’s reaction whenever they are challenged by assigned job responsibilities that do not correspond to their knowledge, skills and abilities (WHO, 1948). The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (2014) acknowledges that work-related stress refers to the harmful physical and emotional reactions that often occur when job demands are not in line with an employee’s capabilities, resources or needs. In this sense, work-related stress is important because it significantly affects both employees and organizations in negative ways (Bahari et al, 2016)

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