Success and failure factors for stress management interventions: Survey of Belgian companies

Stress at work has become a major problematic in Europe this last decade. Several methods for diagnosis and intervention can be listed. In this context, an examination of interventions taking place in companies is necessary: what are the reasons for implementing stress prevention programmes (SPP)? Which ones are the most frequent? What are the success and failure factors for implementing SPP?
In order to answer those questions, a large scale survey was implemented in Belgian companies (N=210). Results show that a) companies mainly use diagnosis to fulfil legal obligation, b) psychosocial risk assessments are less implemented in small companies (less than 50 workers), c) interventions are rarely systematically evaluated, d) most interventions target work environment, and specifically organisational (rather than ergonomic) outcomes, and e) communication/participation and methodological outcomes facilitate implementation of intervention, whereas changes and time/finances outcomes are blocking factors.
To conclude, we can say that our survey emphasizes the relevance of public-awareness campaign (particularly towards small companies) about the necessity of implementing stress prevention program and of proceeding to systematic evaluation of such program. Public-awareness campaign is also needed concerning the impact of facilitating outcomes such as communication, participation and methodology, and of blocking outcomes such as organizational changes, time constraints and costs.
Theoretically speaking, our study stresses first the prevalence of work-related interventions that are organisational rather than ergonomic or individual. Another point rather new regarding the existing literature is the blocking aspect of organizational changes.