The influence of stress on the duality of life and the work efficiency of workers in the helping professions

This bachelor thesis deals with the Impact of stress on the quality of life and work performance of staff in helping professions. Currently, the challenge is the omnipresence of stress factors in day-to-day life and the impact of stress on quality of life and our health. The bachelor thesis you are holding in your hands is an attempt of a compact view of stress and its impact on quality of life. The paper is devoted to a harmful stress that can suppress potential, negatively affect work performance and health status, as well as positive stress, which can positively affect the workload and develop creativity and motivation. The theoretical part of the thesis is focused on working with specialised literature on the basis of which describes the characteristics of stress, effects on health and mental balance in both work and personal life. In addition, I pay attention to individual causes of stress, reactions of the organism, their solutions and the effect on the human body and spirit. Finally, the thesis is devoted to stressors and typical stressful situations that can occur in an environment where the social worker or a worker in social services takes care of clients with special needs. Aim of the thesis focuses on mapping the stress load of staff in selected professional groups and its influence on performance and satisfaction in life. The second objective of my thesis is to find which efficient protective mechanisms and methods selected professional groups use to overcome stress and to maintain a standard quality of life. Before the actual research initiation, two basic research questions were defined: 1) Stress experienced by staff in helping professions has no impact on quality of life. 2) Stress experienced by staff in helping professions has no impact on work performance. The research part was processed in the form of quantitative research through questionnaire survey using two standardised questionnaires with closed questions, supplemented by age, sex and work position of the respondents. The group of respondents was compiled from various age and gender groups, who are social workers or social service workers with professional focus on disabled persons and work with clients requiring special approach to organisations operating in the territory of České Budějovice. A medium-sized observation sample (53 and 72 respondents) was processed in the research investigation. The objective of this thesis was achieved and both initially introduced hypotheses: "Stress experienced by staff in helping professions has no impact on quality of life" and the hypotheses "Stress experienced by staff in helping professions has no impact on work" were confirmed and at the same time can be defined (on the basis of the research) a hypothesis that the majority of surveyed respondents in the helping professions is exposed to multiple sources of stress, nevertheless symptoms of stress are not present at high levels, although methods for coping with stress are not fully adequate. Furthermore, it may be (with regard to quality of life of the chosen group of respondents) also defined a hypothesis that men and women maintain a standard quality of life despite the stress load in the profession. In conclusion, a view could be taken that even though workers in social services and social workers in the helping professions are exposed to stress they are able to work with stress and have mastered mechanisms to help fight against stress and handle the burden which is caused by stress. Despite knowledge of the mechanisms in the fight against stress, it is necessary that the these workers shall continue educating themselves in future and learn to resist stress and be resilient against its negative effects as each respondent has some stress management reserves