Research Article The Influence of Recognition and Social Support on European Health Professionals’ Occupational Stress: A Demands-Control-Social Support-Recognition Bayesian Network Model Susana García-Herrero, 1 Jose R. Lopez-Garcia, 1 Sixto Herrera, 2 Ignacio Fontaneda, 1 Sonia Muñoz Báscones, 1 and Miguel A. Mariscal 1 1 Escuela Polit´ ecnica Superior, University of Burgos, Avda. Cantabria s/n, 09006 Burgos, Spain 2 Department of Applied Mathematics and Computer Sciences, University of Cantabria, Santander, Spain Correspondence should be addressed to Susana Garc´ ıa-Herrero; susanagh@ubu.es Received 2 June 2017; Revised 11 September 2017; Accepted 3 October 2017; Published 9 November 2017 Academic Editor: Giorgi Gabriele Copyright © 2017 Susana Garc´ ıa-Herrero et al. Tis is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Healthcare professionals undergo high levels of occupational stress as a result of their working conditions. Tus, the aim of this study is to develop a model that focuses on healthcare professionals so as to analyze the infuence that job demands, control, social support, and recognition have on the likelihood that a worker will experience stress. Te data collected correspond to 2,211 healthcare workers from 35 countries, as reported in the sixth European Working Condition Survey (EWCS). Te results obtained from this study allow us to infer stress under several working condition scenarios and to identify the more relevant variables in order to reduce this stress in healthcare professionals, which is of paramount importance to managing the stress of workers in this sector. Te Bayesian network proposed indicates that emotional demands have a greater infuence on raising the likelihood of stress due to workload than do family demands. Te results show that the support of colleagues, in general, has less efect on reducing stress than social support from superiors. Furthermore, the sensitivity analysis shows that, in high-demand and low-control situations, recognition clearly impacts stress, drastically reducing it. 1. Introduction Currently, according to the latest studies surveyed, it has been discovered that healthcare professionals undergo high levels of occupational stress as a result of diferent factors related to the working conditions attributed to their trade [1]. In particular, nurses experience the highest level of stress when compared to other healthcare professionals [2–4]. Stress has been defned in diferent ways throughout history. Selye [5], one of the pioneers in developing the concept, defned stress as “Te non-specifc response of the body to any demand, whether it is caused by, or results in, pleasant or unpleasant conditions” [5, 6]. Te human body’s response to stress is exhibited through the appearance of health problems, symptoms, and advanced stages of disease. Many studies analyze the interrelationship between occupational stress and high blood pressure and coronary heart disease [7–13]. Other studies reveal the rela- tionship between stress and musculoskeletal problems [2, 14– 16]. At the same time, occupational stress might be the cause of severe depression [17, 18] and insomnia [19–22], which itself conditions and promotes the labor absenteeism of those workers who sufer from it [23, 24]. Various theoretical models have been developed to explain diferent situations pertaining to the relationship between work and its efect on workers’ mental health. Firstly, the most commonly used models are those by Karasek [25], the Job Demand-Control (JDC) model, and the expanded model, Demand-Control-Support (DCS) [26, 27]. Te classic model (JDC) by Karasek [25] explains the negative health efects on workers if they do not have sufcient control over their work in relation to labor demands. In Karasek Hindawi BioMed Research International Volume 2017, Article ID 4673047, 14 pages https://doi.org/10.1155/2017/4673047