Psychosocial risk factors in the workplace

An abundance of scientific evidence from around the world points to the adverse effects of workplace psychosocial risks on mental health¹ and physical health. Over the past few years, the Institut national de santé publique du Québec (INSPQ) and its collaborators have developed a Tool for Identifying Psychosocial Risk Factors in the Workplace, which allows these risks to be identified and analyzed, and approaches to reducing their impact in the workplace to be proposed. For more information, visit the following section of the INSPQ’s website: Risques psychosociaux du travail.

What risks are we talking about?

Workplace psychosocial risk factors are linked to work organization, management practices, employment conditions and social relations. They are identifiable, measu…

In the implementation of Québec’s 2013-2020 Climate Change Action Plan, the ministère de la Santé et des Services sociaux mandated the Institut national de santé publique du Québec with conducting an exploratory study on the psychosocial effects experienced by workers as the result of four extreme weather events, the frequency of which will be exacerbated by climate change: heat waves, flooding, storms, and forest fires.

It aims to briefly examine the literature and knowledge of various key actors in order to propose more significant next steps for research projects that respond to Québec’s workplace and public health needs and issues.

This study has shown:

• The extreme weather events studied can have psychosocial effects on workers, but the knowledge of these effects varies greatly by event.
• The psychosocial effects on workers have been the most thoroughly documented in the scientific literature for storms, less well documented for floods and forest fi…

This collection of fact sheets, which was prepared in response to numerous requests for simple and accurate information on psychosocial risk (PSR) factors in the workplace, is intended to serve as a practical tool for occupational health workers as a whole. The fact sheets were drawn up by experts from the Équipe de prévention des risques psychosociaux du travail et promotion de la santé des travailleurs (Team for the prevention of psychosocial risk factors in the workplace and the promotion of workers’ health) of the Institut national de santé publique du Québec (INSPQ), in collaboration with the Groupe scientifique sur l’impact des conditions et de l’organisation du travail sur la santé (Scientific panel on the impact of working conditions and work organization on health), made up of researchers and specialists in the field.

These fact sheets supplement the Tool for Identifying Psychosocial Risk Factors in the Workplace, whose use require…