ABSTRACT
This chapter describes a project which aims to understand the impact of psychological ill-health on safety performance, and what can be done to mitigate these effects. In the UK, there has been a recent increase in attention to psychological ill-health at work, and work-related stress in particular. The UK Health and Safety Executive has funded extensive research and published guidance for employers in this area. The effects of anxiety and high arousal vary from task to task, dependent on the specific skills required for accurate performance, and complexity of the task. For example, a highly complex task requiring integration of information from multiple sources would be more severely affected than a simple task. Humans are strongly influenced by the conditions in which they operate, and certain conditions are known to have an affect on performance.
