[The perception of stress in the European stakeholders]

Stress at work is a thoroughly studied issue, also on the basis of ILO, WHO and European Parliament guidelines. Nevertheless, although there is a great amount of research on causes of occupational stress and on its impact on workers' health, few investigations have been carried out on stress perception and the known data shows that there is no unanimous point of view among the different parties in the world of work (employees, employers, trade unions and institutional bodies). While on the one hand some European stakeholders have a poor perception and recognition of stress risk (ISPESL, 2004), on the other hand one of the occupational health problems most frequently reported by workers is stress (European Foundation, 2005). The PRIMA - EF project (Psychosocial Risk MAnagement - European Framework) has been developed in this context, and it is funded by the Sixth EC Framework Program (FP6). It is carried out by an international consortium with the participation of ISPESL (Department of Occupational Health). The project deals with occupational stress management with a special focus on how such an issue is perceived by the different European stakeholders.