Introduction: Occupational Stress and Its Management.

In this introduction to the special issue, the current key issues in the area of occupational stress and its management are summarized. These include the link between stress and ill health, job stressors and strain outcomes, work-life balance and individual worker characteristics and the experience of occupational stress. The editors argue that the concept of occupational stress and its corollary, coping, may not be useful concepts for moving forward and that the implicit adoption of a psychomedical model for understanding workers' reactions to work demands has hindered progress in this field. Finally, there is a lack of good research on stress management interventions, but on the basis of current evidence, it is concluded that there are few benefits to workplaces implementing many such programs. It is speculated that the concept of occupational stress has had its day and that a return to a focus on occupational stressors and worker fatigue, where the field originated, might be more productive. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)