TY  - JOUR
A1  - Bernburg, Monika
A1  - Vitzthum, Karin
A1  - Groneberg, Jan David Alexander
A1  - Mache, Stefanie
T1  - Physicians' occupational stress, depressive symptoms and work ability in relation to their working environment : a cross-sectional study of differences among medical residents with various specialties working in German hospitals
T2  - BMJ open
N2  - Objectives: This study aimed to analyse and compare differences in occupational stress, depressive symptoms, work ability and working environment among residents working in various medical specialties.
Methods: 435 German hospital residents in medical training working in 6 different medical specialties participated in a cross-sectional survey study. Physicians were asked about their working conditions and aspects of mental health and work ability. The Copenhagen Psychosocial Questionnaire, the Work Ability Index, the ICD-10 Symptom Rating and the Perceived Stress Questionnaire were used to measure working conditions, mental health and work ability.
Results: Results show that up to 17% of the physicians reported high levels of occupational distress and 9% reported high levels of depressive symptoms. 11% of the hospital physicians scored low in work ability. Significant differences between medical specialties were demonstrated for occupational distress, depressive symptoms, work ability, job demands and job resources. Surgeons showed consistently the highest levels of perceived distress but also the highest levels of work ability and lowest scores for depression. Depressive symptoms were rated with the highest levels by anaesthesiologists. Significant associations between physicians’ working conditions, occupational distress and mental health-related aspects are illustrated.
Conclusions: Study results demonstrated significant differences in specific job stressors, demands and resources. Relevant relations between work factors and physicians' health and work ability are discussed. These findings should be reinvestigated in further studies, especially with a longitudinal study design. This work suggests that to ensure physicians' health, hospital management should plan and implement suitable mental health promotion strategies. In addition, operational efficiency through resource planning optimisation and work process improvements should be focused by hospital management.
KW  - Mental health
KW  - depression
KW  - occupational stress
KW  - work ability
KW  - working conditions
Y1  - 2016
UR  - http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/45225
UR  - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-452253
SN  - 2044-6055
N1  - This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
VL  - 6
IS  - 6, e011369
SP  - 1
EP  - 9
PB  - BMJ Publishing Group
CY  - London
ER  -