From pressure to resilience: understanding stressors and coping strategies among Thai construction professionals

Construction professionals experience substantial job-related stress that can lead to depression, anxiety, and heightened psychological strain, yet the mechanisms linking stressors, mental health, and coping remain underexplored in developing countries. This study investigates these relationships among Thai construction professionals using survey data from 291 respondents analyzed through descriptive statistics, factor analysis, and Kendall’s tau-b correlations. Three stressor dimensions were identified: Job Demands and Insecurity, Workplace Inequities and Financial Strain, and Operational Inefficiencies. Three coping dimensions also emerged: Collaborative and Individual Problem-Solving, Problem Confrontation and Support-Seeking, and Denial and Effortful Distraction. No direct association emerged between overall stressors and mental health outcomes, whereas significant associations appeared between stressors and coping and between coping and mental health, indicating that coping functions as a mediating mechanism. The findings extend the transactional model of stress and coping by showing that coping strategies, rather than stressors alone, explain variations in mental health. Culturally specific patterns, such as the limited effectiveness of support-seeking in hierarchical, collectivist environments, were observed. Limitations include the cross-sectional design, reliance on self-reports, and the absence of formal mediation analysis. Future research should apply structural equation modeling to verify indirect pathways and further examine culturally shaped coping processes.