What is Stress?

The word stress comes from the Latin "estrictia". Stress was used in the 17th century
in the meanings of disaster, trouble, affliction, affliction, grief, sorrow. In the 18th and
19th centuries, the meaning of the concept changed and it was used for objects,
people, organs and spiritual structure in the meanings such as power, pressure and
force. Accordingly, stress has begun to be used as a resistance against the deformation
and distortion of the object and person by the effect of such forces.
Selye (1956) is one of the leading scientists dealing with the subject of stress and
defines stress as "the body's response to any non-specific demand placed on the body"
(Johnstone, 1989: 4).
According to Cüceloğlu, stress is "the effort an individual spends beyond his physical
and psychological limits due to the incompatible conditions in the physical and social
environment" (Cüceloğlu, 1994: 321).
Selye saw stress as an environmental stimulus that affects the individual. After a study
he conducted in 1950, he defined the term stress as a situation that the organism takes
against the environment inside. At the end of this approach, Selye emphasizes the
concepts of stress and stressor.
He named the environmental stimulus that creates a series of reactions in the
individual as stressor, and the individual's reaction to such stimuli as stress. As a
result, Selye defined stress as "an individual's general reaction to various
environmental stressors" (Erdoğan, 1999). Selye stresses that the internal balance of
the living thing is affected by the internal or external environment of that living
thing.defined it as a difficult situation. According to Selye, stress is the sum of all the
different adjustments going on in the body at any given moment. The work of organs,
stretching and relaxation of muscles, secretions, etc. Stress is a normal and necessary
process that occurs as a result of life (Dyce, 1973).

There is a very subtle difference between stress and stimulus. Because a stimulus is
also anything that causes a reaction in the organism. There is a degree of difference
between stress and stimulus.In order for any stimulus to be a stressor, it must exceed
the pre-programmed comfort threshold for a certain sensory organ and disrupt the
balance of the system. The system initiates an adaptation process to return to balance
in response to this stress response.
Tension is the effect of the stress situation on the system. Due to tension, the system
receives the information that it is in a state of stress and enters the process of returning
to equilibrium. On the other hand, strain is the price paid by the system or the amount
of energy it spends in the process of returning to balance (Şahin,1995).

Stress is a concept that affects individuals and affects their behavior and relationships
with other people. Stress is not something that happens out of the blue or by itself. In
order for stress to occur, the environment in which a person lives or lives and the
changes that occur in the environment must affect the person. Every individual is
affected by the changes in the environment, but some individuals are affected more or
more slowly by these changes. Stress is related to the effect of a change in the
environment in which a person lives or a change in the environment of a person. The
personality traits of the person under the influence affect the degree of exposure to
these effects. In order for stress to occur, the individual's body system must be
activated by the occurrence of special bio-chemical changes in the body of the
individual affected by the environment (Pehlivan, 1995).

Alarm Phase:
When the individual encounters a source of stress, the body displays a "fight or
flight" response due to the activation of the sympathetic nervous system. As a result
of the physical and chemical changes that occur in the body during the fight or flight
response, the person becomes ready to face or open up to the source of stress. It
develops in the form of acceleration of heartbeat, increase in blood pressure,
acceleration of respiration and sudden release of adrenaline.The stage in which the
fight or flight response occurs is called the "alarm stage" In the alarm stage, the stress
curve rapidly rises above the normal resistance level as the sources of stress and their
intensity increase. The first signs of deviation from normal behavior begin to appear.

Resistance Stage:
The alarm phase is followed by the "adaptation or resistance phase". If the source of
stress is adjusted, everything returns to normal. At this stage, the lost energy is tried to
be regained and the destruction in the body is tried to be eliminated. When stress is
coped with, the parasympathetic nervous system begins to be active. Heart rate, blood
pressure, breathing are regulated, muscle tension is reduced. In the resistance stage,
the individual puts forth his best effort to resist the stress and shows the behaviors of a
stressed person. This situation can be observed in the behavior and life of the
individual for a certain period of time.

Exhaustion Phase:
As long as the sources of tension in the adaptation phase and their intensity do not
decrease or increase, the individual's effort is broken and he enters a phase in which
serious deviations and disappointments are experienced in his behavior.
If the source of stress cannot be coped with and adaptation cannot be achieved, the
physical resources cannot be used and the exhaustion stage begins. In the exhaustion
phase, the parasympathetic nervous system is active. The person is exhausted and the
source of stress is still present. At this stage, long-term sources of stress cannot be
fought and the person becomes open to the effects of other stressors.

Symptoms of Stress
Stress has some unique symptoms. These symptoms are; state of tension, constant
worry, excessive alcohol and smoking, insomnia, difficulties in cooperating, feeling
of inadequacy, emotional instability, digestive problems, high blood pressure.
(Davis, 1984: 439. Act. Pehlivan, 1995: 45).
Even if stress is experienced for a short time, it can cause permanent results in a short
time, such as tension, an increase in heart rate, or excessive use of alcohol and
cigarettes. Kahn and Cooper, 1993)
Even if stress is experienced for a short time, it can cause permanent results in a short
time, such as tension, increased heart rate, or excessive use of alcohol and cigarettes.
Stress also causes an increase in overeating and smoking, which carry a high risk for
coronary heart disease (Kahn and Cooper, 1993).
Stress-related symptoms can be grouped into four groups: physical, emotional, mental
and social (Braham, 1998: 52-54):

1. Physical Symptoms: Headache, irregular sleep, backaches, jaw twitching or

grinding of teeth, constipation, diarrhea and colitis, rash, muscle aches, indigestion
and ulcers, high blood pressure or heart attack, excessive sweating, change in appetite,
tiredness or energy loss, increase in accidents.
2. Emotional Symptoms: Anxiety or worry, depression or crying quickly, rapid and
constant change in mood, irritability, tension, feeling of low self-esteem or insecurity,
hypersensitivity or vulnerability, outbursts of anger, aggression or hostility, feeling
emotionally drained.
3. Mental Symptoms: Concentration, difficulty making decisions, forgetfulness,
confusion, poor memory, excessive daydreaming, preoccupation with a single idea or
thought, loss of sense of humor, low productivity, Decreased work quality, increased
errors, reasoning
weakening.
4. Social Symptoms: Distrust towards people, blaming others, not going to
appointments or canceling them too soon, Trying to find fault with people and hurting
them with words, overly defensive attitude, being offended by many people,
not talk.
5. If these symptoms start to appear frequently outside of normal circumstances,
individuals are under stress. The first step in controlling stress is to be aware of it.
What needs to be done is to analyze the physical, emotional, mental and social
characteristics of the individual well and
is to be able to cope with the stressful situation in the best way by being aware of
these symptoms in abnormal situations.

Factors Causing Stress

Many environmental factors play a role in the formation of stress and create a
stressful environment. Today, employees and managers work in highly competitive,
volatile, uncertain and even ambiguous business environments. Stress-inducing
factors in particular, managers and employeesa quality that employees cannot control,
in other words,
If it is caused by close and general environmental conditions, managers and
employees have difficulty in showing dedication and adaptation to these
environments. Considering their own plans and programs
People who are unable to do so and have to change due to the force of external
conditions experience great stress or tension. Stress-creating factors can be grouped
into three main groups.
These;
(1) sources of stress related to the individual himself,
 (2) the individual's work environment
sources of stress,
3) stress sources created by the general environmental environment in which the
individual lives (Pehlivan, 1995)

Personal Stress Sources

When the link between stress and organizational relationship is examined, it is
possible to see that the personality of the employee is also a source of organizational
stress. How the person perceives his environment, how he reacts to environmental
changes and relationships is also related to the personality of the person concerned
within certain limits. The fact that the employee is an autocratic person, gender,
emotionally introverted or extroverted, emotionally hurt very quickly, resistance to
negativities and the need for success in general can be a source of stress in the
organizational structure (Erdoğan, 1999).
The more important the personality is in the behavior of the employee in the
organization, the more important it is in the individual's being affected by
organizational stress sources. Generally, individuals differ from each other in the level
of their propensity to stress. Employees in terms of their tendency to stress
If we classify it, three different employee personalities can be put forward as Type A,
Type B and Mixed Type Personality (Baltaş and Baltaş, 1987: 222; Pehlivan, 2000).

Type A behavior traits usually talk hurriedly, rush when other people are talking, eat
fast, hate waiting in line, never have to catch up with something, have a schedule
filled with more activity than time allows,hate wasting time, trying to do too many
things at once, impatience with people who are too slow, leaving little time for rest,
friendship, or pleasure. Most of the organizations reward people who show type A
behavior and expect their managers to adopt type A behavior models. For this reason,
many individuals in organizations show these characteristics at the expense of their
physical and mental health (Pehlivan, 1995).

Individuals with type B behavior are the opposite of type A individuals. Type B
people are free from rigid rules and flexible. They do not care about time, they are
comfortable and patient. They tend to be overly ambitious about success. They do not
get angry easily and do not get nervous. They know how to enjoy their work. Their
comfort with their work does not make them feel guilty, they work calmly and
regularly. Type B individual, unlike type A individual, is an easy-going type. They
are quite open and comfortable. They don't care much about time. Success doesn't
give them much. Others.They do not compete with. Even their speech is in a more
relaxed and calm tone. Type B individual is a confident type of himself and his
environment (Pehlivan, 2000)

Smoking, one of the oldest habits in human history, constitutes a serious public health
problem that needs to be addressed. Smoking is seen not only as a habit-forming
behavior, but also as a disease that requires treatment, which has a substance
addiction dimension and is defined by the World Health Organization as a state of
bio-psycho-social intoxication. (Cut, 2004: 7). Smoking causes the death of
approximately 6 million people worldwide (WHO, 2016)
.
Cigarette use, which causes the development of nicotine addiction, is the most
common type of substance addiction, which harms health by adversely affecting the
body with its harmful substances, and is a transitional substance to other substance
addictions with its easy and legal nature of supply (Özyardımcı, 2002: 132).

The fact that cigarette is an easily accessible substance causes its use to become
widespread especially among the young population in developing countries
(Buğdaycı, 2008: 36). Young adults constitute the most risky group in terms of
smoking.
Although the age of onset of smoking varies from culture to culture, it is seen that
smoking starts mostly in adolescence.

Many studies reveal that smoking is highest in individuals between the ages of 25-34.
According to the findings of this research, studies to prevent young individuals from
starting smoking and quitting smoking are very important in the fight against smoking
(Çalışkan, 2015: 23).

According to the World Health Organization's Global Report on the Prevalence of

Smoking (2015), the number of smokers aged 15 and over worldwide is
approximately 21.2% (WHO, 2015).
To determine the expectations of individuals from smoking; It is important to
understand the behaviors of people to start smoking, maintain and quit smoking. In
particular, it is necessary to understand the need of individuals for smoking and to
create appropriate prevention and cessation programs in this direction.
should be considered as While some of the expectations from smoking are universal,
some may be culturally specific.
Smoking and addiction is not only an individual behavior problem, but also a social
and societal problem caused by environmental conditions.
In addition to the combination of the individual's personal characteristics with social
risk factors, many factors such as the facilitating function of exclusion from the social
structure and social system play a role in smoking addiction. Considering all these
factors, the cigarette addiction treatment process is a complex one.
It is seen that it has a structure and includes more than one intervention step.
Interventions of professional health workers working with smoking addiction focused
only on the individual's behavior; cannot produce instant solutions and prevent the
behavior from reappearing. Including the dimensions of the social environment in the
intervention process to achieve more effective and permanent results in the treatment
of smoking addiction It is an inevitable need.
The work discipline and function of the social work profession, which covers micro
mezzo and macro levels, contributes to the intervention processes to be applied in the
treatment of smoking addiction, by considering all dimensions related to addiction.
(Polat, 2014:145).
The social worker develops intervention strategies by evaluating the family dynamics
of the individual, the characteristics of the social relations he has, and the possibilities
of the environment in order to achieve the goal of smoking addiction treatment.
Informing and counseling individuals in order to increase their motivation to quit
smoking, increasing the individual's self-efficacy through empowerment activities,
and making social support mechanisms functional are among the interventions of the
social worker.
1.1. Definition and Significance of the Problem
Psychoactive substance use and substance abuse cause multidimensional problems in
many countries of the world and in Malaysia. It causes bodily, behavioral and
cognitive changes by directly affecting the functions of the brain, giving pleasure and
being addictive; but any substance that is not necessary for life is called psychoactive
substance. psychoactive substances; are substances that affect affect, consciousness
and perception (Coşkunol, 2000: 56).
After caffeine, cigarette is the most widely used stimulant psychoactive substance in
the world. The nicotine in cigarettes, like other psychoactive substances, creates a
euphoric effect in the person and causes psychological dependence due to the positive
perception caused by this euphoria. Along with cigarette, cocaine and amphetamine, it
is one of the fastest addictive substances (Batem, 2016)
Individual characteristics such as high self-efficacy seem to be effective in controlling
negative behaviors such as smoking and developing positive health behaviors.
Bandura (1989), the person; It emphasizes that the higher the self-efficacy perception,
the higher the level of positive health behavior. The main reason for this is that
individuals with a high perception of self-efficacy are more focused on internal
control and can use their ability to say 'no' at a high level when faced with a negative
health behavior (Bandura, 1989: 729).
♦FAMILY CONFLICT

The rapid increase in the number of married women and working couples working in
professional life has also been the reason for the increased interest in work-family
conflicts in the field of organizational behavior (Kossek and Ozeki, 1998: 139; Kasper
et al., 2005:441; Winslow, 2005: 729). The increase in the education level of women,
the increase in career expectations, and economic problems are the most important
reasons for women to enter the business life. However, for whatever reason, women's
involvement in working life negatively affects their relations with their families at
home in some respects, thus increasing work-family conflicts. Work-family conflict,
the causes and consequences of work-family conflict are a frequently discussed topic
in the Human Resources Management and Organizational Behavior literatures in
recent years (Marchese et al., 2002: 145).
The most important reason why this issue attracted so much attention is that work-
family and family-work conflicts negatively affect the performance of individuals and
organizations
People are born and grow up in a family. After a certain period of their life, they get a
job. Therefore, people spend most of the day either at work or at home with their
families. For this reason, people's expectations about life are related to their work or
family. Likewise, when it is said that added from a person, what is mostly meant is
the expectations of the person, work environment and family members from him. In
short, work and family are the two most important elements in almost every person's
life (Fu and Shaffer, 2001: 502; Noor, 2004: 390).
Therefore, one's life in roles related to work and family
are the most prominent roles he has undertaken throughout. Despite the importance of
work and family roles, people have limited energy and time. It is also not possible for
these roles to be fulfilled sequentially, in the form of successive events. Often the
requirements of these roles must be fulfilled simultaneously. Individuals face perhaps
the most important and difficult contradiction of their life.
lives at this point. A person who tries to balance between work and family roles and
their necessities, which are dependent on each other and affect each other, but fails to
do so from time to time will experience a work-family or family-work conflict. In the
literature study on the subject, as the definition of work-family conflict
The definition on which many researchers are based is the definition made by
Greenhaus and Beutell. According to this, work-family conflict, which is essentially a
conflict between roles, can be defined as “the situation in which the role demands
arising from the work and family areas are incompatible with each other in some
aspects” (Greenhaus and Beutell, 1985: 77)Organizational causes of time-based work-
family conflict; overtime, unstable working hours, daily or weekly working hours,
family reasons; It may be having small children, large families or both spouses
working (Elloy, 2004: 20).

B. TENSION-BASED CONFLICT
It is the situation where fatigue, tension, and irritability caused by being exposed to
stress in one area negatively affect one's performance in another area (Greenhaus and
Beutell, 1985: 77). In this type of conflict, which is also known as psychologically-
induced or tension-based conflict, some negative psychological consequences of one's
job or family role prevent the fulfillment of the other role with all its requirements
(Çarıkçı, 2001: 33).

Therefore, tension-based work-family conflict can be expressed as the stress and

tension that a person feels due to the role he/she assumes in the field of work or
family prevents or hinders the fulfillment of the requirements of the other role.
Tension-based work-family conflict occurs when an individual returns home feeling
tired, tense, angry or worried due to the many negativities he has faced at work until
the evening, and when this situation prevents him from fulfilling some of his
responsibilities regarding his family. Similarly, if a person who argues with his wife
at home or gets very angry about his child reflects this situation to his work, manager
or colleagues, it means that the family role interferes with the work role. In both
cases, the negativities and tensions that occur in one area are transferred to the other
area and the performance of the role related to the other area is cold (Greenhaus and
Beutell, 1985: 80-81; Carlson, 2003: 102-103; Kütükçüoğlu, 2002: 43).

C. BEHAVIOR-BASED CONFLICT
It is the situation where the behaviors are incompatible with the behaviors in another
role or make it difficult to adapt (Greenhaus and Beutell, 1985: 81-82). In other
words, behavior-based conflict is the inconsistency of the behaviors performed in one
role with the expected behaviors of the other role (Kinnunen & Mauno, 1998: 158).
Problems and conflicts may arise if a person behaves at home as he does at work and
at work as at home. For example, if a person who is extremely warm, sensitive and
soft towards his family at home, treats his employees in the same way at work, it will
inevitably have problems. Because, work and family approve different types of
behavior due to their structural characteristics (Greenhaus and Beutell, 1985: 82;
Madsen, 2003: 41). Similarly, when a father who is extremely authoritarian and
disciplined at work tries to exhibit the same behavior towards his wife and children at
home, the probability of having problems with his family will increase.