HOME HELP FEEDBACK SUBSCRIPTIONS ARCHIVE SEARCH		QUICK SEARCH:   [advanced] Author: Keyword(s): Year:  Vol:  Page:

Electronic Letters to:

MEN'S HEALTH: PUBLIC HEALTH MATTERS: David R. Williams The Health of Men: Structured Inequalities and Opportunities Am J Public Health 2008; 98: S150-157S [Abstract] [Full text] [PDF]

eLetters: Submit a response to this article

Electronic letters published:

Stress and sickness

Wolfgang Lederer, Johann F. Kinzl   (10 October 2008)

Stress and sickness 10 October 2008
Wolfgang Lederer, Anesthesia and Critical Care Innsbruck Medical Univeristy, Johann F. Kinzl Send letter to journal: Re: Stress and sickness wolfgang.lederer{at}i-med.ac.at Wolfgang Lederer, et al.	Coomber and colleagues (2002) investigated stress in UK intensive care unit physicians and found that dissatisfaction with career correlated highly with distress and depression. (1) Mental health problems were predicted by five stressors: “lack of recognition of one’s own contribution by others”, “too much responsibility at times”, “effect of stress on personal/family life”, “keeping up to date with knowledge” and “making the right decision alone”. Sources of chronic stress include competence factors, long working hours, demands of night call, workload, and economic uncertainty. (2) Somatic symptoms correlate significantly with satisfaction with amount of time spent working, mental health, work satisfaction, workload, healthy lifestyle, coping abilities and support-in-stress. (3) Poor teamwork seems to contribute to the sickness absenteeism of hospital physicians even more than traditional psychosocial risks such as overload and low job control. (4) References 1. Coomber S, Todd C, Park G, Baxter P, Firth-Cozens J, Shore S: Stress in UK intensive care doctors. Br. J Anaesth. 2002;89(6):873-81. 2. Kluger MT, Townend K, Laidlaw T: Job satisfaction, stress and burnout in Australian specialist anaesthetists. Anaesthesia. 2003;58:339-45. 3. Bergman B, Ahmad F, Stewart DE: Physician health, stress and gender at a university hospital. J. Psychosom Res. 2003;54(2):171-8. 4. Kivimäki M, Sutinen R, Elovainio M, Vahtera J, Räsänen K, Töyry S, Ferrie JE, Firth-Cozens J. Sickness absence in hospital physicians: 2 year follow up study on determinants. Occup Environ Med. 2001;58(6):361-6.