Stress: Facts and Theories through Literature Review

Abstract

<strong>Introduction:</strong> Human everyday life is full of stress and strain, so that the present century is called stress era. Unfortunately, here is no literature integration about stress. The aim of the present paper is to make a theoretical integrative consensus in stress modalities. <strong>Methods:</strong> The design of the present study was systematic review. Inclusion criteria were subjective relevance to study keywords (include stress, stress control, stress reduction, social stress, community stress, group stress, stress increase, stress side effects, stress resources, stress stages, stress types), being published by academic and/or scientific resource, and publication period (between January, 1, 1990 and March, 20, 2015). Using Jadad scale, those clinical trial papers with 2 and upper were selected. Delphi method used to form the structure of final results. Results were collected by content analysis. <strong>Results:</strong> Eleven major definitions, three main classifications, three fundamental explanatory perspectives, occupational stress and related issues, job burnout and related issues, biological and neuropsychological bases, related constructs (anxiety, homeostasis, allostasis), spiritual/religious/Islamic perspectives, stress outcomes, and multiple relations between stress and culture were presented and discussed. <strong>Conclusion:</strong> The present study was an effort to make a theoretical unity of thought in studies about stress. According to the results, it appears that stress cannot be investigated via unimodal studies, and there is a great need to incorporate BioPsychoSocioSpiritual perspective in analyses and future frameworks of stress studies.