Effects of Person-Centred Psychological Assistance on Workers in Stressful Jobs

Abstract

This paper describes a study that evaluated person-centered psychological assistance in reducing the stress of workers in stressful jobs. Randomly-assigned experimental group participants received written information on basic person-centered counseling. Participants were asked to implement these methods while talking with an assigned co-worker for 10 minutes a day for one week about the co-worker's stresses or emotions relating to the workplace. Participants in the experimental group completed a distress measure before and after the intervention. Post-intervention distress levels of the experimental group significantly decreased compared to the control group which received no intervention. The findings suggest that providing psychological assistance from co-workers informed about basic person-centered counseling may be helpful in reducing distress.