Lo stress lavoro-correlato: i recenti documenti regionali e del comitato tecnico interregionale

Since May 2009, many Italian Regions and the Interregional Technical Committee have developed guidance for work-related stress risk assessment. These documents have similarities but also differences. Risk assessment is a three steps process in the documents of Lombardia, Veneto, Toscana and Interregional Committee: it implies an objective evaluation, a subjective one and a final report with definition of the hazard level. Only Lombardia asserts that stress perception’s evaluation is necessary even if no risk emerged from the objective investigation. In another document, proposed in Emilia Romagna region, two checklists of objective indicators for risk assessment are proposed. For the “Emilia Romagna work-group –ERPER-“, stress risk assessment is particularly problematic in small companies (less than 10 employees); this group suggests training meetings, each lasting two hours, for both employees and management, to provide knowledge, policy and tools for better dealing with work-related stress. Regarding workers’ health surveillance, the Interregional Committee provides a list of the main disorders correlated with stress, but it doesn’t recommend any specific monitoring procedure, while in other documents the importance of specific health surveillance focused on prevention of stress risk is stressed. Up now an agreement on criteria for an adequate prevention of WR stress are lacking in Italy.