Focus group study to explore critical factors for managing stress of construction workers

Construction workers (CWs) are directly responsible for the success of any construction project. However, the construction industry is stressful, which may significantly affect CWs' performance and safety at work. It is possible to prevent CWs experiencing unmanageable stress and the associated negative consequences if the critical factors for managing their stress were known. Yet, very few studies have been conducted to explore these critical stress management factors for them. With consideration of their unique work characteristics and environment, the current study set out to fill this research gap through exploration of CWs' coping behaviors, stress symptoms, and performance. Focus group studies were conducted to collect qualitative data from skilled CWs, general CWs, and supervisors of CWs. The study explored 15 coping behaviors (categorized as either problem based or emotion based), 5 emotional and 11 physical stress symptoms, and 5 indicators of CWs' performance and safety. The principal findings include the following: CWs often not only experience physical stress symptoms, but also suffer from emotional stress symptoms; and unlike the managerial staffs, CWs usually adopt more emotion-based than problem-based coping behaviors (10 types and 5 types, respectively). A propositional model was proposed and validated by a short questionnaire survey study. Practical recommendations are made for promoting effective stress management and improving project management on CWs. The research limitations are discussed, and suggestions for future research are made. This paper is the first attempt to explore CWs' coping behaviors, specific stress symptoms, and performance, which forms a basis for a future large-scale study.