Occupational Stress Injuries

What are Occupational Stress Injuries?

An occupational stress injury refers to mental health challenges like anxiety, depression, PTSD, or substance misuse that can result from traumatic events, grief, high-stress situations, or long-term work fatigue. This is a non-medical term used to describe how stress from work environments affects mental health.

Occupational stress injuries are sometimes referred to as organizational stress injuries. Occupational stress injury and organizational stress injury are new terms to describe stress from civilian work environments, whereas operational stress injury, and the acronym OSI, is specifically used to refer to stress related to military environments.

Types of Occupational Stressors

There are two main types of occupational stressors:

• Operational stressors, which are linked to job demands and responsibilities.
• Organizational stressors, which come from the work environment, such as staff shortages, lack of training, inconsistent leadership, or a lack of support from coworkers and managers.

Occupational Stress Injuries in Health Care

Health system staff can experience occupational stress injuries. Stressors like overtime and staffing shortages can contribute to stress and exhaustion, and caring for patients, residents, and clients in ill health can cause grief and sometimes trauma.

Effects of Occupational Stress Injuries

• Physical effects: you may have trouble sleeping, experience headaches, or notice changes in appetite. You could feel physically exhausted or constantly fatigued.
• Emotional effects: you may feel anxious, depressed, or emotionally burnt out. Frustration, sadness, and anger can become more common. In some cases, stress could lead to PTSD or substance abuse.
• Work performance impact – you may find it harder to focus or make decisions at work. There could be days where you find it difficult to do things, days where you feel less motivated, and days where you miss work.
• Overall system impact: When many people are under stress, it can create challenges for the entire system, making it harder to provide the level of care we all strive for.

Coping with stress

Developing good ways to cope with stress will help manage or reduce distress. Here are some beneficial approaches:

• Practice mindfulness – recognizing when your body is responding to stress can be helpful. Noticing when an event activates physical reactions such as increased heart rate, shortness of breath, sweating, or nausea can help bring awareness to your body. You can also practice mindfulness of what types of situations are likely to trigger a stress response to help keep you mentally alert and prepared.
• Find methods of relaxation – taking part in activities you enjoy during stressful events to help foster positivity. Try breathing exercises to help slow the heart rate and signal to the brain that it can decrease the production of stress hormones.
• Set goals – Setting specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, time-limited goals (“SMART” goals) can help alleviate stress, keeping us in action towards managing a stressful event while creating boundaries so that we don’t overexert ourselves. Goals can be a motivator that helps make acute stress feel manageable.
• Practice self-care – During stressful events, practicing self-care through activities like massage, yoga, and meditation can help restore a sense of calm, even if just temporarily. For lasting benefits, it’s important to integrate self-care into our daily routines, recognizing that different cultures may have their own self-care practices that resonate with individuals.
• Seek the assistance of a professional – When stress feels unmanageable and is creating panic attacks, depression, or other health problems, seek the advice of a mental health professional. Therapy can be a necessary and helpful tool in learning to cope with chronic stress factors and preventing distress. Remember that various cultures may have different perspectives on mental health, so finding a professional who respects and understands your cultural background can enhance the therapeutic experience.