ABSTRACT
Interventions for occupational stress can be divided up into three types, known as primary, secondary and tertiary level interventions (Cox and Cox 1993). At the primary level, the aim is to identify and reduce or eliminate the causes of stress in the working environment. However, sometimes the work environment cannot be changed since aspects of it are inherently stressful, as is often the case in health care work. The focus of secondary level interventions is thus to teach the employee coping strategies to help buffer them against an inherently stressful environment and to help them to develop the confidence to look after themselves more effectively in situations that would in actual fact be stressful for anyone. Secondary interventions include pro-actively imparting mental and physical health promotion strategies, education and the enhancement of coping skills aimed at the prevention or management of normative (sub-clinical) levels of stress in individual employees or occupational groups within the organization.
