Stress ‘improves workers' production’

Everyday problems becoming ‘medicalised' - warning

The majority of Britons believe stress can have a positive influence on our working lives by increasing job satisfaction, according to a survey released today.

A team of occupational psychologists investigated UK workers' attitudes towards stress after 77% of people in the UK confirmed this claim. Only 7% reported signs of slowing down when they felt stressed.

Time passed more quickly at work for 46% of people when they were under pressure, according to the study. It also showed that 49% said they were most effective when under pressure, 47% focused better on what needed to be done when stressed, and 83% produced work of average to high quality when under pressure.

Aparna Malhotra, author of the report, said: “We have found that poor job satisfaction is a major cause of rising stress levels, but on the flip side, without stress people lack focus and they do not experience the same fulfilment from their working day.”

The psychologists examined the survey of 3,000 people in the UK and found that job satisfaction depended on three factors - stimulation, stress and time (SST).

The individual will experience absolute job satisfaction if the three are balanced, but too much or too little of any one factor can result in a frustrating lack of job satisfaction.

The results showed that 50% of people have an unbalanced SST due to stress, while people working in the education sector have the least spare time, therefore the highest levels of stress and the most unbalanced SST.

At the other end of the scale, solicitors were found to have the best SST balance with fast-paced work providing a degree of challenge throughout the day combined with plenty of spare time.

Time was the key factor to influence the balance, creating stress and eroding job enjoyment. Only 14% of women claimed to regularly have spare time compared with 26% of men who said they often find themselves at a loose end.

Danger of ‘medicalising’

Meanwhile, the normal trials and tribulations of everyday life are in danger of being
“medicalised” by doctors, shadow health secretary Liam Fox said today.

The former GP warned against a growing trend of applying medical labels to common aspects of the human condition. These could include people going to their doctor because they feel down about a bereavement, losing their job or other factors which affect most people at some time in their lives.

But there was a distinction made between these more minor, temporary problems and serious mental illness which did require medical intervention.

In an interview with website ePolitix.com, Dr Fox said: “I think we're in huge danger of medicalising aspects of human nature that have no place in the medical environment. I think that the medical profession has to ask itself just what is the appropriate territory that we should be on.”

The Conservative MP said the NHS should provide the tools and advice for patients to be able to “improve their own lot”.

He called for a “lively debate” among the medical profession about the role it should perform in society because “science doesn't always have the right answer”.

Dr Fox also attacked the increasing culture of legal action against doctors: “I think we're entering very dangerous territory where we're importing the litigation virus from the United States which can seriously undermine the essential nature of independence, individual liberty.”

He said there was a danger this could lead to “a type of defensive medicine” which was costly to the taxpayer and of no benefit to the patients.

“And the one thing I did not got into medicine or politics for was to put money into the pockets of the legal profession,” he added.

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Article by Max Herd - 22 August 2003

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