OBJECTIVE To analyze the scientific literature about the effects of exposure to psychosocial risk factors in work contexts.METHODS A systematic review was performed using the terms “psychosocial factors” AND “COPSOQ” in the databases PubMed, Medline, and Scopus. The period analyzed was from January 1, 2004 to June 30, 2012. We have included articles that used the Copenhagen Psychosocial Questionnaire (COPSOQ) as a measuring instrument of the psychosocial factors and the presentation of quantitative or qualitative results. German articles, psychometric studies or studies that did not analyze individual or work factors were excluded.RESULTS We included 22 articles in the analysis. Individual factors, such as gender, age, and socioeconomic status, were analyzed along with work-related factors such as labor demands, work organization and content, social relationships and leadership, work-individual interface, workplace values, justice and respect, personality, health and well-being, and offensive behaviors. We analyzed the sample type and the applied experimental designs. Some population groups, such as young people and migrants, are more vulnerable. The deteriorated working psychosocial environment is associated with physical health indicators and weak mental health. This environment is also a risk factor for the development of moderate to severe clinical conditions, predicting absenteeism or intention of leaving the job.CONCLUSIONS The literature shows the contribution of exposure to psychosocial risk factors in work environments and their impact on mental health and well-being of workers. It allows the design of practical interventions in the work context to be based on scientific evidences. Investigations in specific populations, such as industry, and studies with more robust designs are lacking.

Elaborating innovative moments (IMs) that are new ways of thinking, feeling, behaving and relating, in the therapeutic dialogue, may facilitate change. IMs that are more predictive of amelioration of symptoms in CBT are the ones focused on contrasts between former problematic patterns and new adjusted ones; and the ones in which the clients elaborate on processes of change. Therapists may integrate these kinds of questions (centred on contrasts and centred on what allowed change from the client's perspective), in the usual CBT techniques. When elaborating these IMs successfully, therapists may expect an improvement in symptoms in the next session of psychotherapy.

Resumo: O artigo faculta evidência empírica adicional para a validação de um instrumento de medida da Inteligência Emocional sugerido por Rego e Fernandes (no prelo). Os indivíduos da primeira amostra foram convidados a responder ao questionário sugerido por esses investigadores e a declarar os seus níveis de saúde-doença física. Os indivíduos da segunda amostra, após reportarem os seus níveis de IE, foram convidados a declarar o grau de satisfação com a vida. Os resultados sugerem uma estrutura hexafactorial da IE: (1) compreensão das emoções próprias;(2) autocontrolo perante as críticas; (3) auto-encorajamento (uso das emoções); (4) autocontrolo emocional; (5) empatia; (6) compreensão das emoções dos outros. Estas seis dimensões explicam 14% da variância da medida de saúde física e 26% da variância da satisfação com a vida. Embora similar à extraída por Rego e Fernandes, a dimensionalização aqui obtida denota algumas vantagens relativamente a ela. Designadamente, os conteúdos semânticos dos itens relativos a cada factor são agora mais claros e congruentes com a denominação dos factores.Palavras-chave: inteligência emocional, saúde-doença física, satisfação com a vida. Emotional intelligence: Further contributions for validating a measurement instrument (Abstract):The paper provides further empirical evidence for validating the 1 Este trabalho foi desenvolvido à luz do Projecto de Investigação POCTI/CED/ 40265/2001 -"Comportamentos de Cidadania Docente de Professores Universitários", financiado pela Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia e comparticipado pelo fundo comunitário FEDER. 2 Estamos muito gratos aos revisores anónimos pelos seus preciosos comentários e sugestões.

It’s widely recognised the impact of psychosocial exposure for the promotion of healthy workplaces. Knowing that European industry is mainly constituted by SMEs, and that SMEs are faced as key players for economic and sustainable growth, innovation, employment and social integration, undertaking and managing psychosocial exposure in SMEs is an urgent need. The main objective of this work is to present and discuss the main constrains faced by SMEs when implementing Occupational Health and Safety (OH&S) management systems that encompass psychosocial risks.This work is based on interventions at the workplace that occurred between the years 2010 and 2015 in Portuguese metalworking SMEs: i) 21 OH&S management systems implementation; ii) 37 OH&S audits.From the current work the authors make some assumptions: i) the transposition of European Directives, namely Council Directive 89/391/EEC to European country laws enhanced the awareness of SMEs for the need of OH&S management, namely concerning psychosocial risks; ii) the integration of evidence into practice is potentiated by the application of standards to the workplace or other still methodologies; iii) The methodologies must be tailored according to the SMEs specificities, namely size, industrial sector, culture, etc.; iv) The approach to psychosocial risk management in SMEs must start with a structured and modest approach and evolve continuously to more mature systems; v) The full potential for dealing and managing psychosocial risk cannot by achieved without developing additional control methods – concerning for example auditing practices, and continual improvement techniques.

A third version of the Copenhagen Psychosocial Questionnaire (COPSOQ III) was developed internationally aiming to respond to new trends in working conditions, theoretical concepts, and international experience. This article aims to present the preliminary validation studies for the Portuguese middle version of COPSOQ III. This is an exploratory cross-sectional study viewing the cross-cultural adaption of COPSOQ III to Portugal, ensuring the contents and face validity and performing field-testing in order to reduce the number of items and to obtain insight into the data structure, through classic test theory and item response theory approaches. The qualitative study encompassed 29 participants and the quantitative one 659 participants from municipalities and healthcare settings. Content analysis suggested that minor re-wording could improve the face validity of items, while a reduced version, with 85 items, shows psychometric stability, achieving good internal consistency in all subscales. The COPSOQ III Portuguese middle version proved to be a valid preliminary version for future validation studies with various populations, able to be used in correlational studies with other dimensions.