Occupational Stress and Depressive Mood Among Interns and Residents; Relationship between Occupational Stress and Depressive Mood Among Interns and Residents in a Tertiary Hospital, Seoul, Korea

Kim, Keon; Choi, Yoon Hee; Lee, Sun Hwa

Abstract

PURPOSE
Occupational stress can have a negative effect on the worker such as physical, emotional, and psychological health. Although it is well reported that health service staff tend to have a high level of minor psychiatric disorder, only a few studies have been reported in Korea. Intern and Residency (residents) are very vulnerable periods of stress and other psychiatric disorders. In this study, we describe occupational stress of interns and residents and relationship between occupational stress and depression.
METHODS
The participants of this study were interns and residents trained in a tertiary hospital in Korea. The occupational stress scale was used for measurement of occupational stress. In addition, the Korean version of the Beck depression scale was used to evaluate the prevalence of depression. Statistical analyses were performed using SPSS v. 18.0; p-value less than 0.05 was considered statistically significant.
RESULTS
Female doctors showed higher occupational stress than male. Interns and chief residents demonstrated higher occupational stress than other grades. Astonishingly, most participants showed depressive mood. Compared with the general population, job demand and culture of the workplace are in the first upper quartile. It is indicated that compared with general populations, physicians have a higher workload and patience is required in order to cope with the harsh culture of the workplace. Depressive mood was evaluated with various factors and only occupational stress was statistically significant.
CONCLUSION
Overwhelming occupational stress of residents could result in both medical and social problems. Therefore, recognition of occupational stress is essential and aggressive interventions are required.