Comparision of stress between patient-care personnel and other personnel at Maharaj Nakorn Chiang Mai Hospital

Abstract

        Stress has long been recognized as one of the major psychosocial hazards among healthcare personnel. Objective: To measure  and compare the levels of stress among patient-care personnel and other personnel at Maharaj Nakorn Chiang Mai Hospital. Method: Maharaj Nakorn Chiang Mai Hospital  personnel who participated in the risk assessment for Coronary Heart Disease program conducted in 2005 were enrolled in this study and were divided into two groups. The first group, patient-care personnel, is those responsible for direct patient care, including clinical physicians, ward nurses and nurse assistants, etc. and the second group, are those personnel who do not have direct patient-care responsibilities, including lab  technicians, office workers, etc. We used the Suanprung Stress Test-20 (SPST-20) to measure stress levels of the participants. Cronbach’s Alpha Coefficient was 0.93. The SPST-20 scores were then used to stratify the participants into one of four groups depending on their level of stress: mild, moderate, high and severe. We analyzed the data in terms of frequency, percentage and Chi-square. Results: Of the 1087 subjects, 22.1% were in the mild stress group, 45.7 were in the moderate group, 27.7% were in the high stress group, and 4.5% were in the severe stress group, There was no statistically significant different between the patient-care personnel and the other personnel groups in terms of levels of stress (p=0.49). Conclusion: A significant number of hospital personnel (32.2%) were found to have high or severe levels of stress. Direct patient care, surprisingly, was not a significant predictor of stress levels.