MediKeeper Survey Reveals a Surprising Drop in Workplace Stress Levels
Three-Year’s-Worth of Survey Data Points to Decreased Stress Among Employees.
San Diego, January 24, 2017: MediKeeper is proud to announce its findings on the recent trends in stress among employees across the U.S.
MediKeeper provides a customizable wellness portal to healthcare providers, insurance brokers, wellness companies, TPAs, and corporate employers across the nation. Within this portal, users are prompted to complete a comprehensive Health Risk Assessment questionnaire that includes questions pertaining to sources and levels of stress. Analysis of the data then allows employers to respond to their employees’ stress with targeted wellness programming. The portal is HIPAA-compliant, and the data contains de-identified aggregate data that does not disclose the identity of the company or users.
The stress data below was generated from a subset of the more than 3 million lives covered by MediKeeper over a three-year period (2014-2016). Respondents’ work experience ranged from entry-level to executive, the company sizes varied from small to large, and were geographically spread across the United States. Full details of the study can be found here.
When asked, “How would you rate your current stress level with 1 being low and 5 being high?” the greatest number of respondents (35.9%) rated their stress as a “2” in 2016 versus 31.57% in 2014. Over the three-year period (2014-2016), the percentage of respondents who answered with a stress level of “1” increased by 58%.
Over that same period, the percentage that answered with a stress level of “5” dropped by 39%. This trend shows a shift from those who reported high stress moving to low stress over the three-year period.
“Having looked at the results of the American Psychological Association’s (APA) 2015 Stress in America study, we wondered what the stress profile of our client population looked like,” says David Ashworth, CEO of MediKeeper. “We have a robust database consisting of health and wellness information collected from over 3 million employees across the United States.”
Although results of the 2016 Stress in America study have yet to be released, results from 2014 and 2015 indicate that nationwide stress is on the rise. In terms of sources of stress, the APA cites “money” and “work” as the top two leading causes, with “family responsibility” coming in third.
Rather than look at a representative sample of all Americans, the MediKeeper study narrows the focus to individuals that are employed and have access to wellness programming made available by their employer.
“We found that the top three stressors are the same as those reported by the APA study,” explains David. “However, the major difference was the rank order of sources of stress.” “Money” and “family” stressors lead the way among MediKeeper’s sample, with “work” trailing behind in third.
“This high-level analysis of our data lays the groundwork for further studies aimed at identifying factors that account for decreases in stress among American employees,” noted David. “Also, results suggest that workplace wellness may help reduce stress.”
