CSCS Mental Health & Wellbeing Questions
Stress, wellbeing and supporting others on site.
Mental Health & Wellbeing — practice questions (untimed, instant feedback)
- 5 questions · pass mark 90%
- Untimed practice — you see the correct answer immediately after each question.
- Some questions need more than one answer — these are clearly marked.
All 5 Mental Health & Wellbeing questions and answers
These are the same 5 questions as the practice test above, written out with the correct answer and the reasoning behind it. Read them through when you want to revise rather than test yourself.
1. Which is a good practice for supporting mental-health recovery?
Answer: Talking openly and honestly
- A) Keeping away from colleagues
- B) Talking openly and honestly (correct answer)
- C) Avoiding the problem
- D) Taking on more work
Why: Open, honest communication supports recovery and encourages people to seek help.
2. Why is peer support useful for managing mental health on site?
Answer: It provides ready understanding and shared experience
- A) It removes the need for professional help
- B) It builds competition
- C) It provides ready understanding and shared experience (correct answer)
- D) It increases isolation
Why: Peers offer understanding and shared experience, which can be comforting and protective.
3. Which approach helps promote mental-health wellbeing on site?
Answer: Giving access to mental-health training and resources
- A) Piling on more work
- B) Giving access to mental-health training and resources (correct answer)
- C) Overlooking small problems
- D) Cutting down contact with management
Why: Training and resources give workers the tools to manage their mental health.
4. Which could be a sign that a worker's mental health is suffering?
Answer: Pulling away from workmates
- A) Doing more work than usual
- B) Laughing often
- C) Pulling away from workmates (correct answer)
- D) Taking frequent breaks
Why: Withdrawing from workmates can be a sign that someone is struggling.
5. Why does mental health matter on a construction site?
Answer: It helps keep the workplace safer
- A) It can push up insurance costs
- B) It helps keep the workplace safer (correct answer)
- C) It draws media attention
- D) It cuts the need for holidays
Why: Workers who are supported and focused keep themselves and others safer.
What this topic covers in the CSCS test
Mental health sits alongside physical health in the HS&E test because someone who is struggling is at greater risk on site. HSE requires employers to assess the risk of work-related stress and act on it, like any other health risk. Questions here test whether you would talk, listen and point someone towards help.
- HSE's six Management Standards: demands, control, support, relationships, role and change
- Spotting change in a workmate, such as pulling away from the team or uncharacteristic mistakes
- Where help comes from: manager, GP, occupational health, union rep or helpline
- Peer support, mental health first aiders and wellbeing toolbox talks
- The employer's duty to assess work-related stress and act on the findings
- Reasonable adjustments and planning a return to work after time off
- Why HSE treats this as a health and safety risk, assessed like any other
Key facts worth memorising
- 964,000 workers
- HSE estimates 964,000 workers in Great Britain had work-related stress, depression or anxiety in 2024/25, the largest single cause of work-related ill health.
- 22.1 million days lost
- Stress, depression or anxiety caused 22.1 million of the 40.1 million working days lost in 2024/25, an average of 22.9 days off per case.
- Six causes, not one
- The Management Standards cover six areas of work design that cause stress if managed badly: demands, control, support, relationships, role and change.
- Write it down at five
- Employers must assess the risk of work-related stress, and with five or more workers that assessment must be written down.
- A measured risk
- For deaths registered in England from 2011 to 2015, ONS found low-skilled male construction labourers had a suicide risk around three times the male national average.
- Free help, day or night
- Samaritans is free on 116 123, 24 hours a day. The Lighthouse Construction Industry Charity runs a free 24/7 helpline for construction workers and their families on 0345 605 1956.
What people get wrong
Mental health is personal, not a site safety issue.
HSE says to assess the risk of stress, and its impact on mental and physical ill-health, in the same way as any other work-related health and safety risk, and there is a legal duty to act on that assessment.
Leave people alone until they raise it themselves.
The test rewards the opposite. Ask, listen and encourage them to speak to a manager, GP or helpline. HSE says the earlier a problem is tackled, the less impact it has.
Talking to a workmate replaces professional help.
Peer support matters because a workmate understands the job, but it sits alongside professional help rather than instead of it.
Stress is an illness you either have or you do not.
HSE says stress is not an illness, but it can make you ill. It comes from how work is designed and managed, so it can be changed.
Answering these questions in the test
Answers here favour talking, listening or getting help, and reject isolation, silence or piling on more work. Where two options look reasonable, choose the one where the person is supported and a manager or professional is brought in. Options that punish someone for speaking up are never right. Remember the duty is to change the work, not just the worker. If you need to talk today, Samaritans is free on 116 123.
Sources
Written from the following. Where a figure could not be verified against one of these, it has been left out rather than approximated — our sources and methodology explains how we date and re-check them. Spotted something wrong? Report an error and we will fix it.
- hse.gov.uk/stress/overview.htm
- hse.gov.uk/stress/standards/overview.htm
- hse.gov.uk/stress/risk-assessment.htm
- hse.gov.uk/stress/mental-health-overview.htm
- hse.gov.uk/statistics/dayslost.htm
- press.hse.gov.uk/2025/11/20/hse-publishes-annual-workplace-health-and-safety-statistics/
- workright.campaign.gov.uk/working-minds/
- ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/articles/suicidebyoccupation/england2011to2015
- samaritans.org/how-we-can-help/contact-samaritan/
- lighthousecharity.org/free-24-7-support/
Topics that come up alongside mental health & wellbeing
Ready for the real thing?
When you are scoring 90% or better here, take a timed 50-question mock under exam conditions, then book your CITB HS&E test.