Appraisal of Strategy Adopted by Construction Professionals for Coping with Stress

Abstract

Stress has been identified as a significant hindrance to construction professional’s performance on site. Unfortunately, stress cannot be eliminated on site, but it can only be managed with different stress coping strategies. Therefore, this study aimed at appraising the strategy adopted by construction professionals for coping with stress. Although past studies have examined strategies adopted for dealing with the stress from two dimensions namely: problem-solving and emotional based stress coping strategies. This study introduced the third dimension and called it acceptance a hybrid of previous dimensions. It also appraised the strategy adopted by construction professionals for coping with stress based on their working experience. Convenience sampling method was used in gathering data from selected construction professionals in Lagos state Nigeria. A total of 62 questionnaires were obtained from the professionals out of 70 that were distributed. The data were analysed with statistical package for social science (SPSS version 24), using, mean score and Kruskal Wallis test. The findings from the Kruskal Wallis revealed that the strategy for coping with stress coping is dependent on the construction professionals working experience. The study concludes that communication is a crucial element for coping with construction stress. The study recommends that construction firms and project managers should provide opportunities for construction workers to communicate among themselves. The findings from this study will be useful for project managers and construction firms in Nigeria towards ameliorating the adverse effect of stress among construction professionals.