Psychosocial safety climate: a multilevel theory of work stress in the health and community service sector

Abstract

Work stress is widely thought to be a significant problem in the health and community services sector. We reviewed evidence from a range of different data sources that confirms this belief. High levels of psychosocial risk factors, psychological health problems and workers compensation claims for stress are found in the sector. We propose a multilevel theoretical model of work stress to account for the results. Psychosocial safety climate (PSC) refers to a climate for psychological health and safety. It reflects the balance of concern by management about psychological health v. productivity. By extending the health erosion and motivational paths of the Job Demands-Resources model, we propose that PSC within work organisations predicts work conditions and in turn psychological health and engagement. Over and above this, however, we expect that the external environment of the sector particularly government policies, driven by economic rationalist ideology, is increasing work pressure and exhaustion. These conditions are likely to lead to a reduced quality of service, errors and mistakes.

Psychosocial safety climate moderating the effects of daily job demands and recovery on fatigue and work engagement

“…As PSC is a condition of the workplace determined by management, these results highlight a potentially rewarding avenue for school management and education departments to pursue towards improving teacher mental health. Dollard and McTernan () note inconsistency between the work‐stress literature and actual interventions; the former often focuses on identifying stressors related to the work environment, while the latter focuses on individual factors. Targeting PSC as a workplace intervention will tackle both elements – employees will have access to more psychological resources to meet daily job demands, and the recovery they achieve outside of work may yield boosted engagement, with likely flow‐on effects to job performance (Rich et al ., ).…”

Working conditions as modifiable risk factors for suicidal thoughts and behaviours

“…Linking this back to Leach et al 's study, it is important to note that exposure to bullying is often correlated with exposure to other psychosocial job stressors (such as high job demands, low job control, high job insecurity, poor supervisory support9 10) and poor psychosocial safety climates 11. To disentangle the roles of different stressors, future studies should include (to the extent feasible) measures on multiple stressors, as well as measures of organisational attributes.…”

Occupational stress and job burnout in mental health

“…We invited three of the world's prominent experts who conduct empirical research in this field. Dollard & McTernan (2011) address overall conceptual issues, proposing a new construct, the Psychosocial Safety Climate (PSC), to better understand the interpersonal and psychological dynamics that occur within organisations. PSC has been defined as shared perceptions of organisational policies, practices and procedures for the protection of workers' psychological health and safety that stem largely from management practices.…”

“…Abbiamo invitato tre noti esperti internazionali del settore che sono attivamente coinvolti anche nella ricerca empirica sul campo. Dollard & McTernan (2011) inquadrano il problema da un punto di vista generale e propongono un nuovo costrutto, il Clima di Sicurezza Psicosociale (Psychosocial Safety Climate, PSC), che può aiutare a comprendere meglio le dinamiche interpersonali e psicologiche che hanno luogo all'interno delle organizzazioni lavorative. Il PSC è definito come la percezione condivisa da parte dei lavoratori della presenza di un insieme di politiche, pratiche e procedure organizzative messe in atto a beneficio della loro salute e sicurezza psicologica, promosse in larga misura dal management dell'organizzazione stessa.…”