Abstract
BackgroundOccupational stress is an undesired factor causing discomfort for healthcare workers. Stressors in work can lead to dissatisfaction and in turn, this may affect patient care adversely. The aim of this study was to evaluate the occupational stress among residents and faculty physicians of various medical specialties working night shifts.MethodsResidents and faculty physicians working night shifts in the emergency departments, medical and surgical wards were questioned with Swedish Demand Control Support Questionnaire. Also, various factors (specialty, marital status, sex, number of patients during a typical shift, number of night shifts per month, decision about career making in that specialty, having chronic disease and/or sleep problem) originated from social life or working conditions were investigated that could affect the demand, job-control and job strain model.ResultsOf the 108 participants, the mean age was 31 ± 6 years, 40.7 % were female, and 78.7 % were residents. Job strain was similar among the three physician groups (p > 0.05). Job control and social support was found to be lower among residents while job stress was higher. The social support-scores were lower in residents who were responsible for more than 60 patients, and who had a chronic disease. The demand-scores were lower in faculty physicians who worked 1 to 4 night shifts per month. Job strain was higher in residents with respect to faculty physicians.DiscussionStress and psychosocial risk factors are considered critical issues in the field of occupational health. Workload and job stress are stated as predictors of workers' health, productivity, and motivation. We found a few job stressors by physician working night shifts such as number of taken care of patient, having chronic disease. But, these physicians were significantly residents, due to their high workload sense. Interestingly, job stress was not more by emergency physicians than others.ConclusionsJob strain was found to be higher among the residents as compared to the faculty physicians. Job strain was not significantly different among the physicians of emergency medicine than the physicians of the other specialties working night shifts.
Highlights
Occupational stress is an undesired factor causing discomfort for healthcare workers
Job strain was found to be higher among the residents as compared to the faculty physicians
job stress (JS) was higher in the residents compared to the faculty physicians There was no statistically significant difference in terms of social support scores between the residents and the faculty physicians (Table 2)
Summary
Occupational stress is an undesired factor causing discomfort for healthcare workers. Stressors in work can lead to dissatisfaction and in turn, this may affect patient care adversely. Variations in health care policies, increasing patient admissions, increasing responsibilities, and environmental stressors can affect physician wellness [1]. A physician’s performance is partially related to health economics, in the sense that his/her income may depend on ordering and prescribing preferences, and decisions to admit or operate a patient. These decisions may be evaluated by a variety of entities and this may cause stress. Majority of physicians admit that patient care is affected negatively by their stress at work [3,4,5]. Implementations with a view to reduce the physicians’ JS should lead to an increase in physicians’ performance and serve for a more satisfactory patient care [1,2,3, 7,8,9]
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