Radio România Internațional

Tag: mental health

  • The Romanian employees’ mental health

    The Romanian employees’ mental health

    The two cases of workplace deaths in 2024 have drawn the attention of specialists.

     

    Moreover, in February 2025, a Romanian company was convicted in court for the first time for the professional burnout of an employee, and the company must pay her moral and material damages. And the data confirms that the level of stress related to the workplace does not only affect isolated cases. A recent study that analyzed the responses provided by 3,500 employees in Romania shows that 48% of them experience, often and very often, symptoms of anxiety at work, while 43% allocate at most three hours a week for relaxation.

     

    Corina Neagu has over 20 years of experience in the field of human resources and is the founder of a consulting company that helps organizations cultivate the potential of their employees, which, in turn, discover their talents. She believes that the low level of education in Romania over the last 35 years and the lack of emotional education are determining factors of mental health problems related to the workplace.

     

    Corina Neagu believes that Romanian schools still have a lot to improve in order to learn to provide students with the skills they need in the future: “School in Romania has brought us to a situation where we do not prepare skills at all, we do not take care of the emotional well-being of our children. Parents who are either abroad for work, or are not emotionally available, or there are dysfunctional relationships in the families, or poverty – when we are talking about the rural environment, or abuse of all kinds. Not even parents know how to be good to themselves, so that they can manage their relationship with their children. And then, all these things have led to our state, as a people, from an emotional and mental point of view, not being exactly as it should be. Yes, in a civilized, healthy, normal country there are prevention policies, there are strategies at the national level, there are programs at the organizational level, prevention and wellbeing — to encourage well-being and psychological safety at work.”

     

    The expert believes that in the past of our people, patterns of behavior were formed that it is time to break. In this sense, fear, as the main instrument of control during communism, still makes its presence felt in the way we relate to each other hierarchically. The lack of a culture, of teamwork, a misunderstood individualism and shame as a component of the way we relate to each other are other inherited cultural aspects: “Another cultural model is that we did not have the right to an opinion. We did not know what feedback meant. If we opened our mouths, we were told “go to your room, now the adults are talking”. I am not talking about the instruments of coercion that existed at home and at school. Again, this is a model that has been perpetuated.”

     

    Many important voices in the field of human resources increasingly say that organizations play an essential role in the well-being of employees and, therefore, of society in general. Corina Neagu: “Companies are not third parties, they are run by people who have to make decisions. The decision to take care of your employees must be a priority for any kind of organization and for any kind of leaders of that organization. Why do you take care of your people? Do your people take care of your customers? It’s very simple. Yes, both internal and external customers. That’s what Richard Branson said, it is not I who said it, but he said it very well. I mean, this is extremely important —not just in the sense that you give a salary at the end of the month, but be careful to create the space, the culture, and the environment where they feel authentic and can come and express themselves authentically. Conscious authenticity. I mean, we don’t expose everything about us in public, but we come without any kind of sword over our head and without any kind of repercussion — if I give feedback, without any kind of associated trauma, if during a discussion I don’t agree with you and we have divergent opinions and I feel comfortable expressing my point of view the way I think. So I express what I think without being penalized, harassed, abused, marginalized or fired. ”

     

    A survey conducted by the BestJobs platform last year revealed that Romanian employee satisfaction at work was at its lowest level in three years, with only three in ten respondents saying they were satisfied with their jobs. In the same study, six out of ten employees said their job negatively affected their personal lives. At the same time, there are a growing number of NGOs and trained people helping companies and employees develop healthier work environments, where healthy communication and empathy guide interpersonal relationships. (EE)

  • The psychological effects of the pandemic

    The psychological effects of the pandemic


    Recently on a downward trend, the pandemic left its mark on our daily lives for the last more than two years. It also took its toll on our mental health, leading to a massive rise in the incidence of anxiety and depression around the globe, with a 25% increase in such cases in the first year alone, and probably by much more to date. This situation is confirmed by a survey of policies and treatment of depression in Romania and is in keeping with the data published by the World Health Organisation, which estimates that over 40 million Europeans suffer from depression, accounting for 4.3% of the population of the European Union.



    The doctors say the pandemic has affected the state of patients where the psychiatric pathology set in after they were infected with Covid-19, while in the case of people already struggling with mental health problems, these became more acute. This was made worse to a large extent also by misinformation, with many believing they will die if they get sick, especially if they end up in hospital. There was also the pressure of fake news that created a feeling of anxiety and, last but not least, in this context of the Covid disease, the behavioural changes that may fall into the category of mental health are also the result of a lack of predictability, explained Dr. Ioana Stăncel in an interview to Radio Romania.



    We were not used to being isolated, not to be able to communicate directly with doctors, the patients did not understand for a long time what was happening with them, and all this created a context that was not analysed sufficiently, was not given enough attention, because the clinical area focused on those syndromes that posed an immediate threat to patients lives, says Ioana Stăncel:



    “Given that these manifestations are long-term, I believe that now, at this stage of long Covid, they can be observed, either correctly diagnosed or diagnosed as clinical manifestations associated with other disorders. We are seeing many people with this syndrome of chronic fatigue which no one diagnoses as necessarily belonging to the area of internal diseases or neuropsychiatry, but everyone is complaining of fatigue, chronic fatigue and occasional fatigue, which requires rest and specific treatment. I believe we will see the social consequences of these manifestations in the capacity for work, learning and to return to pre-pandemic social behaviour.”



    After two very difficult years, we are now faced with a new factor of major stress, the war in Ukraine as a result of the Russian invasion, which increases the populations anxiety. This may also contribute to an increase in the level of aggression seen in some people in the context of the pandemic, says Dr Ioana Stăncel, who made an analysis of the situation:



    “From the perspective of the pandemic, I believe this period of isolation led to a distortion of the perception of reality in society and every one created their own scenario in which they saw themselves as heroes or super-persons. This led to the emergence of disorders in terms of tolerance for others, for those close to us, for the rights of others, and the perception that we are owed everything as individuals or small group to the detriment of the rights of others. As for the current conflict, the pandemic probably also led to a more acute fight over resources, access to resources, material resources, natural resources, as well as a period of political instability which the powers involved did not know how to handle so as to achieve a new balance and thus imbalances appeared with regard to the access to resources, to a stable population, with regard to the management of the populations perception of risks. In the larger region of Romania, the Republic of Moldova and Ukraine there were a number of studies, I took part in some of them, about societal security, in the sense defined by the concepts of security studies and the perception of the risks to self expressed through perceived, but unreal threats from other groups. This imbalance, this disorder in terms of societal security, of the perception of risk, which is not necessarily real, led every one of the groups involved to exacerbate arming measures, the measures to manifest their power, giving rise to imbalances that are difficult to manage, that are somehow impossible to overcome. At the same time, the fact that we have had a pandemic on our hands has led to some restrictions of democratic freedoms.”



    Humour is one way of fighting anxiety and depression, specialists say. They also advise making plans for the present, for each day at a time, enjoying what we have, establishing positive and realistic objectives, concentrating on the beautiful things in life, socialising more, meeting friends, listening to music, taking walks, adopting a pet, staying away from sources of fake news and not thinking too much about the future, which is uncertain. At the same time, says Dr Ioana Stăncel, the two components, the spiritual component and the medical component should be complementary and coexist, none replacing the other.