title: Employers' perceptions and attitudes toward the Canadian national standard on psychological health and safety in the workplace: A qualitative study.
abstract: The estimated societal and economic costs of mental illness and psychological injury in the workplace is staggering. Governments, employers and other stakeholders have been searching for policy solutions. This qualitative, exploratory study sought to uncover organizational receptivity to a voluntary comprehensive standard for dealing with psychological health and safety in the workplace. A series of five focus groups were conducted in a large Western Canadian city in November 2013. The seventeen participants were from the fields of healthcare, construction/utilities, manufacturing industries, business services, and finance. They worked in positions of management, consulting, human resources, health promotion, health and safety, mediation, and occupational health and represented organizations ranging in size from 20 to 100,000 employees. The findings confirm and illustrate the critical role that psychological health and safety plays across workplaces and occupations. This standard resonated across the represented organizations and fit with their values. This alignment posed challenges with articulating its added value. There appears to be a need for simplified engagement and implementation strategies of the standard that can be tailored to the nuanced differences between types and sizes of industries. It appears that organizations in the most need of improving psychological health and safety may be the least receptive.
authors: Faculty of Nursing and the John Dossetor Health Ethics Centre, University of Alberta, Canada. Electronic address: diane.kunyk@ualberta.ca.
authors: Diane
authors: D
authors: Kunyk
authors: Canadian Mental Health Association, Calgary Region, Canada.
authors: Morgan
authors: M
authors: Craig-Broadwith
authors: Faculty of Nursing, University of Alberta, Canada.
authors: Heather
authors: H
authors: Morris
authors: Department of Community Health Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, University of Calgary, Canada.
authors: Ruth
authors: R
authors: Diaz
authors: Faculty of Nursing, University of Alberta, Canada.
authors: Emilene
authors: E
authors: Reisdorfer
authors: Department of Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, University of Calgary, Canada; Department of Community Health Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, University of Calgary, Canada.
authors: JianLi
authors: J
authors: Wang
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001290:Attitude; D002170:Canada; D005260:Female; D017144:Focus Groups; D006293:Health Promotion / Q000458:organization & administration*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D016272:Occupational Health / Q000592:standards*; D012307:Risk Factors; D017132:Workplace / Q000458:organization & administration*
keywords: National standards; Occupational health; Psychological injury; Workplace mental health promotion; Workplace safety