Abstract
BackgroundWorking conditions in hospitals may endanger physicians' health and impair patient care. For this reason, an instrument was developed in the form of a questionnaire, in order to record problems in physicians' working conditions and to suggest possible ways of improving them.MethodsA survey was performed with 571 hospital physicians. The questionnaire used is a shortened version of the extensive Instrument for Stress-related Job Analysis for Hospital Physicians. This short version contains 14 scales with 30 items on stressors and resources. For validation purposes, several scales were also used for well-being.ResultsThe factor structure of the short version of the instrument for hospital physicians was confirmed by confirmatory factor analysis. Cronbach's α and the analyses of interrater agreement with the parameter rwg(J) largely gave moderate to good results. The intercorrelations between the scales are mostly slight to moderate, indicating that the scales are largely independent. The bivariate correlations with different well-being variables are highly significant for most questionnaire scales. In multiple hierarchical regression analyses the scales explained a considerable amount of variance for different well-being variables. Taken together, this emphasizes the relevance of the scales for the stress process.ConclusionsThe short version of the Instrument for Stress-related Job Analysis for Hospital Physicians is a reliable and valid instrument, which can be used practically and economically for normal hospital work.
Highlights
Working conditions in hospitals may endanger physicians' health and impair patient care
In the development of the instrument we focused on stressors, such as time pressure and uncertainty, as well as on resources, like autonomy and social support from supervisors and colleagues
With a total of 1,237 physicians, this corresponds to a response rate of 46.2%. 57% of the participants in the survey were male. 17% were entrants, with up to 2 years of professional experience; 15% had between 2 and 5 years experience; ca. 20% had between 5 and 10 years experience; 37% had between 10 and 25 years experience: 10% had more than 25 years experience
Summary
Working conditions in hospitals may endanger physicians' health and impair patient care. The questionnaire used is a shortened version of the extensive Instrument for Stress-related Job Analysis for Hospital Physicians. This short version contains 14 scales with 30 items on stressors and resources. In multiple hierarchical regression analyses the scales explained a considerable amount of variance for different well-being variables. Taken together, this emphasizes the relevance of the scales for the stress process. Conclusions: The short version of the Instrument for Stress-related Job Analysis for Hospital Physicians is a reliable and valid instrument, which can be used practically and economically for normal hospital work. Medical stress is linked to the quality of patient care, e.g. with medical errors [1]
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