More than 70 per cent of UK network managers say crashes are stressful and one in five believe that stress poses a serious threat to their health, according to a recent study.

The study of 500 network managers examined the stress effect of a network that goes down entirely or has extremely slow response times. It showed that failure to deliver urgently needed data leads to what is known as Brown-Out Stress Syndrome (BOSS), and 70 per cent of network managers are sufferers.

Psychologist Dr David Lewis, who conducted the study, also found that more than half of network managers said that brown-outs produce higher stress levels when they have to work to tight deadlines to fix them.

Lewis concluded that BOSS is a threat to high achievers rather than to those with more "laid back" attitudes towards their careers. "It affects the very people that any competitive company least wants to lose," he said.

The survey found that the most common problems relating to stress are: increased irritability and impatience, concentration difficulties, disturbed sleep patterns and stomach cramps or indigestion. One out of eight managers questioned said that this type of stress had already become chronic in their workplace and was harmful to their private life.

Brown-outs produce high levels of stress because they remove control and reduce people's freedom to make decisions. Lewis said: "Network slow-downs can also stress employees not directly involved with computers, by creating bottlenecks and reducing the company's efficiency. This makes it harder for them to complete their tasks and accomplish their goals."