Summary
In the last decades a lot has been done in Italian laboratories to define, understand and tackle health risks due to exposure to biological and chemical agents, and this has led to enormous progress in this field. On the other hand, the same Laboratories modernization has led to be more exposed to less obvious risks but nevertheless quite insidious for staff’s health, intended as a psychophysical well-being and not only as disease absence. Technological innovation, changes in work organization and consequently workers role require adaptability in addition to expose workers to new related psychological risks at work. Work-related stress risks evaluation must be carried out by adopting validated tools, for example the questionnaire drawn by Health and Safety Executive (HSE), based on Management Standards, which investigates six major areas of work environment: demand, control, support, relationships, role and change. Questionnaire results processing, supplemented with the analysis of sentinel events reports and corporate indicators relating to the area of human resources, provide the picture of the organizational climate from which to develop psychological training programs for workers and working groups, aimed to improve organization welfare. Work-related stress assessment and implementation of training a informative measures for its management, other than being a legal requirement, represent a model of effectiveness in human resources management, also in the management process in the service of Laboratory Medicine.