Buildings

Owing to the harsh requirements and characteristics of construction projects, such as limited budgets and tight work schedules, construction professionals suffer from various mental health disorders. The objective of this study is to investigate the effects and interaction of work-related stressors and coping mechanisms on the severity of mental health disorders among construction professionals working in emerging countries. Several studies have focused on the correlations between work-related stressors, coping mechanisms, and mental health outcomes (including depression, anxiety, and stress). However, no study has evaluated the interaction effects of stress factors on the severity of mental health disorders among construction professionals nor examined the effectiveness of coping mechanisms enacted to address workplace stressors. To achieve this objective, a questionnaire was administered to 491 civil engineers with construction site experience across different emerging countries. The survey included background information, stressor categories, coping mechanisms, and the Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale (DASS-21). Four hypotheses were developed and tested using multinomial logistic regression analysis. The findings indicate that project-related stressors play a more critical role in triggering mental health disorders than personal-related attributes. Moreover, while certain stressors (managerial, organizational, and mental) do not exhibit significant individual effects, their interaction effects on mental health disorders are statistically significant. The results further reveal that coping strategies can effectively mitigate the impact of work condition-related stressors on depression, anxiety, and stress, although both positive and negative moderating effects are observed. Professional and personalized mental health consulting is therefore recommended to support construction professionals and promote healthier working environments.

Urban parks play a crucial role in shaping the well-being of the community. This study integrated environmental psychology and co-creation to develop psychologically informed park design. It examined users’ psychological reactions to urban parks to establish a theoretically grounded framework for participatory design. Hence, this study integrated Attention Restorative Theory (ART) with co-creation approaches to provide conceptual clarity on translating psychological constructs into design criteria. The primary objective was to identify and rank design criteria within this integrated framework to meet user psychological demands. Also, it is hypothesized that ART could be applied through a co-creation approach. Specifically, this study administered ART scale questionnaires to 202 community members in Erbil City, and the data were analyzed using statistical analysis to provide empirical evidence for incorporating these psychological dimensions into the co-creation process. The findings reveal that validated measurement of community needs enhances participatory design effectiveness. Furthermore, the high inter-factor correlations (r = 0.79–0.88) suggest that holistic design approaches address multiple restorative dimensions simultaneously. Overall, this research demonstrates how environmental psychology can be systematically integrated into co-creation processes, thereby bridging theory and practice in urban park design. The validated framework provides practitioners with evidence-based tools for psychologically informed participatory design environments that can activate users mentally and improve cognitive function.

The Saudi construction industry relies heavily on a multinational workforce, raising safety concerns under high productivity demands. Although productivity pressure is widely assumed to influence workers’ risk perception and unsafe behavior, empirical evidence directly testing this assumption in culturally diverse construction settings remains limited. This study examines whether perceived productivity pressure predicts risk perception among construction workers from different national backgrounds working on the same project. Survey data were collected from 247 construction workers representing five nationalities on a university construction site in Saudi Arabia. Correlation analysis, regression modeling, and linear mixed-effects models were used to assess the relationship between productivity pressure and risk perception while controlling for age and nationality. The results show that perceived productivity pressure does not significantly influence workers’ risk perception, and this relationship is not moderated by age or nationality. Although cultural adjustment differed significantly across national groups, nationality did not alter the pressure risk perception relationship. These findings challenge prevailing assumptions in construction safety research and suggest that productivity pressure may affect unsafe behavior through mechanisms other than cognitive risk appraisal. The study contributes empirical evidence from a controlled multicultural setting and highlights the need for safety interventions that extend beyond productivity pressure management to address decision-making processes, communication, and risk assessment competencies within multinational construction workforces.