The evaluation of the degree of occupational stress and factors influencing it in forensic physicians working in Legal Medicine Organization in Tehran in the autumn of 2005

Job stress is defined as inconsistency between occupational demands and individual abilities, capabilities, and wishes. Job stress leads to different physical, mental, and behavioral outcomes and complications. Physicians who work in legal medicine organization, due to the nature and characteristics of their job, confront with various stressors. This study has been designed in order to identify the frequency of job stress in physicians working in Tehran Legal Medicine Organization. In a cross-sectional tudy, in the autumn of 2005 we identified the frequency of job stress in physicians working in Tehran Legal Medicine Organization. For measuring the degree of stress, we used Osipow questionnaire, and for analysis of gathered data, we used SPSS (Ver. 11.5). In order to find the relationship between variables and degree of stress, T-test was used. In all statistical analysis, type one error was considered 0.05. Out of 110 physicians working in forensic medicine organization who fulfilled inclusion criteria, 81 persons answered to the questionnaire (degree of responsiveness: 74%). The greatest mean of stressor was related to role ambiguity (28.2%) and responsibility (26.9%). The rate of stress was more frequent in older than younger persons, and also it was more frequent in specialists and those with more duration of employment than general physicians and those with less duration of employment. Men also suffered more stress than women and these results were statistically significant. Questionnaire reliability was tested by Cronbach' α and was 0.83. As mentioned the most frequent stressors were role ambiguity and responsibility, so it is recommended that in order to reduce stress, occupational duties of physicians become more obvious and the organization introduces more information to them and support them more properly.