Large-scale health promotion stress workshops: Promotion, programme content and client response

A series of stress management workshops open to members of the general public was run in support of a city-wide health promotion campaign on reducing stress. To increase access, workshops were run in a leisure centre at weekends over either one whole day or two half-days. Care was taken to design the workshop structure so as to not exhaust or bore people while teaching a range of skills to help participants manage stress. A large number of enquiries was received in response to the promotion of the workshops. The characteristics of those who self-referred are described, as are the workshop programme and its acceptability. Client satisfaction with the workshops was high and the drop-out rate was relatively low. It is concluded that the 'day' format has the potential to provide help where large numbers of people, whether with mental health or physical health problems, need to be reached.