WORK-RELATED STRESS AND DEPRESSION AMONG PRACTICING EMERGENCY PHYSICIANS - AN INTERNATIONAL STUDY

Study objective: To compare the levels of work-related stress and depr ession reported by practicing emergency physicians in three survey sit es and to determine the effects of gender and marital status on the st ress and depression experienced by these physicians. Design: Cross-sec tional mail surveys. Setting and participants: Seven hundred sixty-fou r practicing emergency physicians from the United States, 91 fellows i n full-time practice from Australasia, and 154 consultants and 47 seni or registrars from the United Kingdom. Intervention: Administration of questionnaires requesting demographic information and including an in ventory to assess work-related stress and a scale to measure depressiv e symptomatology. Measurements and main results: A 3 x 2 x 2 multivari ate analysis of variance performed to compare scores on the stress inv entory and depression scale simultaneously by survey site, gender, and marital status revealed significant differences in stress and depress ion by survey site and marital status. Univariate analyses of variance revealed significant differences in both stress and depression among the three survey sites and in depression by marital status. Adjusted m eans indicated that physicians from the United Kingdom reported higher levels of stress and depression than physicians from the United State s and Australasia. Physicians from the United States and Australasia d id not differ with respect to stress or depression. Physicians who wer e not married reported higher levels of depression than married physic ians. No large mean differences, actual or adjusted, were found for an y of the grouping factors. Conclusion: Statistical differences among p racticing emergency physicians from the United States, Australasia, an d the United Kingdom were observed, but the actual levels of work-rela ted stress and depression were similar and did not appear severe. Marr iage was associated with lower levels of depressive symptomatology.