Jogos digitais: uma estratégia para o enfrentamento do estresse ocupacional

Abstract

The changes brought by the constant technological evolution, improvement of production processes with high competitiveness among the companies form a scenario where people are subjected to stressful situations. Occupational stress affects people regardless of age, gender and role within the company. Governments and companies expend a lot of resources because of sick leave, benefit payments, troubled professional relationships and low levels of productivity due to the effects of stress at work. In addition, prolonged exposure to stress and the lack of mechanisms to manage it can cause serious health problems of people. On the other hand, current research shows that digital games have positive potential for coping with stress. However, systems or stress management programs that suggest the action of playing as a way to lower stress levels, do not specify which games should be used. This choice is sometimes in charge of the patient himself. Playing at the workplace is different from playing at home. It is important that the choice of games for coping with occupational stress is made based on workplace environmental characteristics, employee, game and supervised by a Psychologist to avoid the unwanted consequences of using these games. Thus, there is a need to provide psychologic tools that assist them in such task. Researches in the context of digital games and stress have focused on proving that digital games can be used when coping with stress. However, no studies were found to address this goal. This study therefore aims to propose a strategy for the development of search engines and digital entertainment games for coping with occupational stress. The strategy proposed here is based on the relationship among the information coping strategies, personality traits, games preferences, stressors and restrictions at work environment. This information characterizes the company and the employee in the context of occupational stress. The strategy can be used as a guide in the development of tools to assist the Psychologist in the task of suggesting game.