ORGANIZATIONAL STRESSORS IN THE CONTEXT OF INTERVENTION AND RESCUE ACTIVITIES

Abstract

Psychosocial risks are defined by the International Labor Organization in terms of interactions between job content, work organization and management, and other environmental and organizational conditions, on one hand, and employee conditions, skills, and needs, on the other. Thus, psychosocial risks refer to those interactions that prove to have a dangerous influence on employees' health through their perceptions and experience. Long-term involvement in stressful work situations can lead to onset of burnout syndrome, respectively a state of physical, emotional, and mental exhaustion. Health experts estimate that there are millions of people worldwide who suffer from burnout, which is considered a phenomenon of modern society. It is estimated that burnout is found in more than half of the world's active population. More and more organizations either create or buy, programs designed to support employees in preventing the onset of general and occupational stress or, if it has already settled, to assist them in managing it in the most adaptive way possible. The golden rule that prevention is better than cure also applies to psychosocial risk management approaches. The paper addresses the issue of organizational stressors from a theoretical point of view, underlining the most common types of stressors that have the potential to interfere with the work of intervention and rescue personnel.