Anthropological and sociocultural perspective of occupational stress

Abstract

This article addresses the issue of occupational stress from an anthropological and sociocultural perspective in the field of biomedicine. Stress, in both common thinking and that of health professionals, has been characterized as physical and emotional discomforts caused by worries, fears, anxieties, and anxieties. Researchers have linked occupational stress to the rapid evolution of information technology, economic and social crises, and changes in working conditions. In addition, medical anthropology has contributed to the debate on genetic and cultural factors in personality and pathology, as well as the influence of culture in defining normal and pathological. The article highlights the importance of considering both the physical and sociocultural environment in the analysis of occupational stress. While business authorities focus on the personality and coping of workers, workers are concerned with working conditions and work organization. It is pointed out that stress is a physical, emotional, social and moral discomfort, whose origins and consequences are structural and whose expression varies from person to person. The article also stresses that the prevention of work-related stress must be based on a relational perspective involving knowledge and practices of different orders and dimensions (biological, social, cultural, economic, historical and ideological). Finally, it is emphasized that diseases are not randomly distributed in the population, but are related to the social structure and the position of individuals in it.