Stress Management among Public Health Workers in Chiang Mai Province

Abstract

          A tremendous scale of economic, social and political changes has created a certain level of pressure and stress in the mind of people; and thus affected their daily lifestyle. Public health workers, in particular, hold a very high level of responsibility in their work dealing with the situation of life and death for people; so they have to bear a high level of stress while being on duty. This study aimed to explore the level of stress, the factors related to the stress, and the method used for dealing with stress of public health workers in Chiang Mai province. Study samples were recruited through a purposive sampling, totally 347 persons. The survey was conducted by using Suanprung Stress Test containing 60 question items (SPST-60). Data analysis was performed by using frequency distribution, the calculation of percentage, and by identifying the correlation through the Chi Square test. Study result showed that 41.2% of study samples had a moderate level of the sensitivity to stress; 38.6% developed stress due to a cause related to their family; and 40.6% developed stress with a drive from an environmental factor. With regard to the symptoms of stress appeared physically through body systems, 47.7% of samples had a moderate level of such symptoms involving skeleton and muscular systems. Correlation between personal factors and the level of stress showed that the suicidal idea and the idea about wanting to kill other people were significantly developed with a significance level of 0.05. The methods used for dealing with stress among public health workers were reading, watching movies and listening to music (35.4%), followed by discussing with a family member to release tension (31.7%). They wanted their work units to set up a space or a common room for them to take a rest at leisure time, equipped with television, radio and karaoke sets, as well as the fitness equipment.