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Archives of Business Research – Vol. 9, No. 7
Publication Date: July 25, 2021
DOI:10.14738/abr.97.10558. González, V. H. I., Núñez, N. I. M., González, A. M., Peña-Moreno, J. A., & Parga, M. E. C. (2021). The Impact of a Public Health
Environmental Contingency (COVID-19) on Stress and a General Health of Workers from Different Industrial Sector. Archives of
Business Research, 9(7). 140-152.
Services for Science and Education – United Kingdom
The Impact of a Public Health Environmental Contingency
(COVID-19) on Stress and a General Health of Workers from
Different Industrial Sector
Dr. Víctor Hugo Ibarra González
Autonomus University of Nuevo León, México
Dra. Nora Isela Macías Núñez
Autonomus University of Nuevo León, México
Dra. Aurora Moyano González
Autonomus University of Nuevo León, México
Dr. José Armando Peña-Moreno
Autonomus University of Nuevo León, México
Martha Esthela Calderon Parga
Autonomus University of Nuevo León, México
ABSTRACT
The problems that arise in society, in relation to health affect workers to some
extent, this is the case of the COVID -19 pandemic, which has somehow affected
organizations in general, such as: in their profits, in the reduction of personnel, in
adapting new forms of work if required, and in activating health protocols to avoid
the spread of it in its workers, this health situation that is present worldwide has
had a great impact on people from the psychological aspect, it is for this the interest
to carry out this research, with the purpose of knowing the perception of the
workers of different organizations in this pandemic situation, that is to say, how it
has affected them in relation to stress and therefore their general health, the
instruments applied were: Perceived Stress Scale (10 items) and the Goldberg
General Health Questionnaire. The results of this work gave us a Cronbach alpha of
α = .85 of reliability which indicates that this study is reliable, likewise 60% of the
population report that they have felt stress due to COVID-19, as well as 42% of the
population state that they have perceived factors or symptoms that affect their
mental health to some degree.
Keywords. Health, Stress, workers, organization, environmental contingency.
INTRODUCTION
Nowadays, organizations and society itself live in constant change since new forms of work, the
processes that have to be implemented in organizations, as well as the different ways of
thinking of workers in relation to their chronological age, meaning, the different types of
generations that interact in organizations; this encourages the generation of a basic
psychosocial phenomenon in which every human being constantly lives with, this phenomenon
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González, V. H. I., Núñez, N. I. M., González, A. M., Peña-Moreno, J. A., & Parga, M. E. C. (2021). The Impact of a Public Health Environmental
Contingency (COVID-19) on Stress and a General Health of Workers from Different Industrial Sector. Archives of Business Research, 9(7). 140-152.
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.14738/abr.97.10558
is Stress, it manifests itself in people through a stimulus and it causes an alteration since the
person perceives that the demands of this stimulus exceed their coping capacity and as a
response manifests tension and shows it in different ways, which can be physical, psychological
or emotional.
Another effect produced by stress is that people can perceive that their health has been affected,
therefore they do not develop favorably either in their daily activities nor in their work, in
addition to the constant changes that society is currently experiencing such as new forms of
work, the processes that have to be implemented in organizations, as well as some other not
very frequent affect the organization in some way, in this case we can mention the pandemic
situation generated by the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19, which has affected humans
and in some cases can lead to death.
This health contingency, which the World Health Organization declared as a pandemic (March
11, 2020), made the organizations take preventive measures to avoid or minimize some type of
contagion, this leads to a certain type of perception in workers and at point in time their health
may be affected.
In this sense, the WHO defines Health as "a state of complete physical, mental and social well- being and not only the absence of affections or diseases", said quote comes from the Preamble
of the Constitution of the World Health Organization, which was adopted by the International
Sanitary Conference, held in New York signed on July 22, 1946, and entered into force on April
7, 1948, said definition has not been modified since 1948.
On the other hand, Briceño-Leon (2000), mentions that “health is a synthesis; it is the synthesis
of a multiplicity of processes, of what happens with the biology of the body, with the
environment that surrounds us, with social relations, with politics and the international
economy”.
Moreover, Moreno takes up the definition of Oblitas (2010) which considers health as physical,
psychological and social well-being that does not necessarily imply the absence of alterations
and diseases, but includes different degrees of vitality and adaptive functioning, it is also
considered a social phenomenon that can only be explained by taking into account highly
complex structures, such as human behaviors, where variables with strong interaction occur
between them (Moreno, 2008 in Mebarak and Suárez, 2016).
With this, it is clear to us that depending on the perspective and even academic education a
person is observed, is how it can be considered whether they are healthy or unhealthy, this is
that if we speak from the medical perspective and the person does not present any symptoms,
then they are considered healthy. Likewise, from the psychological perspective if by the time of
their assessment they do not present any symptoms or trait of mental illness, they will get a
positive result, otherwise it can happen from the perspective of society since if a person does
not comply with the beliefs, values, or customs of the culture in which they live, they can be
considered as an unhealthy person.
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Archives of Business Research (ABR) Vol. 9, Issue 7, July-2021
Services for Science and Education – United Kingdom
As Alcántara (2008) mentions, the idea of health also responds to a historical condition, since
at each moment, a certain society may have a particular vision of it. In fact, each era corresponds
to a certain unrepeatable structure of power, techniques, ideas, values, customs, beliefs and
norms. So, the notion of what is understood by health is a social product or construction, or as
Emile Durkheim would say (in Ritzer, 2002), "a social fact that can be treated as a thing and is
external and coercive to the individual"
Considering the importance of having knowledge of health in workers, it is necessary to speak
of mental health since it cannot be separated due to the fact that it is immersed within this
concept of health, therefore returning to the definition of the WHO, which mentions that
“Mental health covers a wide range of activities directly or indirectly related to the component
of mental well-being included in the definition of health given by the WHO: «a state of complete
physical, mental and social well-being, and not only the absence of affections or diseases». It is
for this reason that these different activities must be taken into account so that the individual
is in favorable mental health.
Moreover, attention must be paid to the fact that when talking about mental health it refers to
different mental disorders that can be manifested in people and therefore it will be categorized
as poor mental health, otherwise, if there are no symptoms of mental disorder, then they can
be categorized as mentally healthy, without taking into account that these symptoms may be
latent in the individual. For this reason, the role that mental health workers must perform is to
promote better lifestyles where a balance is found in the different factors involved in mental
health.
Therefore, talking about mental health should consider the organizations where people
develop a job function, since as Hespanhol (2018) mentions, the new rules and organizational
structures, such as globalization, interdependence, automation and the technological evolution
in the mental health of the worker, it is asserted that, regardless of the causal factors, the work
environment is a conducive space for education and maintenance of mental health, therefore
this type of organizational changes can affect the worker and it commonly manifests as stress.
Stress
This effect on health is the result of the stress that has been generated in organizations, which
manifests itself in people through a stimulus and this causes an alteration since the person
perceives that the demands of this stimulus exceed their ability to cope and as a response
manifests tension, in which there is a different symptomatology, which can be physical,
psychological or emotional, this results in a deterioration in the perception of workers' health.
The World Health Organization (WHO) defines stress as the set of physiological reactions that
prepares the body for action. On the other hand, Lazarus and Folkman (1991, in Gutiérrez,
2008), define stress as a “set of particular relationships between the person and the situation,
when the situation is valued by the person as something that surpasses or exceeds their
resources and that endanger their personal well-being”.
Stress is necessary in people because it helps in the process of adaptation, self-regulation, as
well as it can be a motivator to achieve goals. It should be mentioned that this stressful situation
is not necessarily the same for everyone, meaning, that each person based on their perception