Research view
Title: | Work stress: psychological impact and correlates in a sample of Egyptian medical residents |
Author: | Nahla N. Al-Sayed, Mona M. Elsheikh, Dalia A.M. Mahmoud, Reem H. El-Ghamry, Walaa M. Sabry, Hisham M. Hatata and Aya M.K. Sakr |
Abstract: |
Background
Heavy training rotations load looms over medical residents because of spending long
working hours in a stressful environment, the demands of which might exceed their
adapting capacity and could affect their psychological and endocrinal functions. The
main objective of this research was to study the depressive symptoms, anxiety
symptoms, and sequence of salivary cortisol rise as work stress parameters among
medical residents in the Ain Shams University, Faculty of Medicine, and identify their
correlates.
Participants and methods
This cross-sectional, descriptive study included 47 residents (age range of 24–29
years) of both sexes and different specialties of Ain Shams University’s Faculty of
Medicine and who had finished at least 6 months of their residency. Residents with
current general medical, allergic, or neurological diseases, substance abuse, and
those who scored more than 300 on the social readjustment scale were excluded from
the study. All students were assessed using Social Readjustment Rating Scale, the
Hospital Consultants’ Job Stress and Satisfaction Questionnaire, the Hamilton Anxiety
Scale, and the Beck Depression Inventory. Furthermore, salivary cortisol was tested for
the students.
Results
Among the studied sample, 38 (87.2%) perceived work as stressful, 24 (51.1%) had
mild to moderate depressive symptoms, whereas 26 (55.3%) mild anxiety symptoms,
15 (31.9%) mild to moderate anxiety symptoms, and 22 (46.8%) had an abnormal
sequence of cortisol rise. Abnormal sequence of cortisol rise was significantly
correlated with residency rank (P= 0.01), whereas overall work stress was significantly
correlated with job clinical nature (P = 0.03), depressive symptoms (P =0.04), and
anxiety symptoms (P= 0.02).
Conclusion
Medical residents showed high level of work stress-related anxiety and depressive
symptoms and high level of abnormal salivary cortisol sequence rise, which was
correlated to their residency rank.
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Journal: | Middle East Current Psychiatry 2016, 23:113–118 |
Text: | |
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