title: [Occupational stress and mental health].
abstract: One fifth of workers reports experiencing stress in the work environment in Europe. A number of studies show that psychosocial stressors in the workplace are associated with adverse physical and mental health outcomes, including symptoms of anxiety and depression. The present paper: briefly describes the characteristics of occupational stress and the main psychosocial stressful risk factors in the work environment; reports the main results of studies on psychosocial risk factors in the work environment as risk factor for common mental disorders; presents findings from an Italian study aimed at assessing prevalence of common mental disorders and workplace psychosocial stressors in a sample of hospital employees; provides the "Working conditions Questionnaire", a validated self-administered instrument to assess perceived stress in the workplace; this questionnaire includes the assessment of organizational justice.
authors.affiliation: Reparto Salute Mentale, Centro Nazionale di Epidemiologia, Sorveglianza e Promozione della Salute, Istituto Superiore di Sanità, Roma. antonella.gigantesco@iss.it
authors.forename: Antonella
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Gigantesco
authors.forename: Ilaria
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Lega
mesh_terms: D006801:Humans; D007558:Italy / Q000453:epidemiology; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000209:etiology / Q000523:psychology; D009784:Occupational Diseases / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000523:psychology*; D016272:Occupational Health; D018570:Risk Assessment; D012307:Risk Factors; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000209:etiology; D017132:Workplace / Q000458:organization & administration