"Taking my breath away by keeping stress at bay" - an employee assistance program in the automotive assembly plant.

Abstract

The aim of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of individual-focused stress management training namely Deep Breathing Exercise (DBE) on self-perceived occupational stress among male automotive assembly-line workers.A quasi-experimental study was conducted at 2 automotive assembly plants in Malaysia over 9 months, from January 2012 to September 2012. Assembly-line workers from Plant A received DBE training while Plant B acted as a control by receiving pamphlets on stress and its ill-effects. Intention-to-treat analysis was conducted among the self-voluntary respondents in Plant A (n=468) and Plant B (n=293). The level of stress was measured using Depression Anxiety Stress Scales-21 (DASS-21) stress subscale.Significant favorable intervention effects were found in Plant A (Effect size=0.6) as compared to Plant B (Effect size=0.2) at the end of the study in those receiving DBE. Time and group interaction effects were examined using the repeated measure ANOVA test in which there was a significant group *time interaction effect [F (1, 1) = 272.45, P

Keywords

• Automotive assembly line
• Deep breathing
• Employee assistance
• Occupational stress