Identifying and evaluating job stress within the Australian small animal veterinary profession

Stress within the workplace can have significant consequences for the individual as well as the organisation they work for. There were two main aims of the present study. Firstly, to identify and describe the work factors that affect the level of job stress experienced by practising veterinarians. Secondly, to evaluate these Stressors and to provide practical stress reduction strategies for individual veterinarians and the organisations they work for. Two hundred and thirty-one veterinarians completed and returned useable surveys. The results suggest that veterinarians who perceive they have high levels of job stress have some distinct characteristics. They experience a greater number of consultations, surgeries and phone calls each day. They spend a greater amount of time in surgery each day. They experience a greater number of working hours, days working late, equipment difficulties, and euthanasias each week. They spend time being on call and when on call they receive a greater number of phone calls each night. They work in practices that employ a large number of staff, which results in their working with many different people. Furthermore, there were negative consequences for individual veterinarians who experienced the higher levels of stress. In particular, they were more likely to experience a reduction in psychological health, have higher levels of insomnia and sleeping difficulties, have reduced job satisfaction, and have greater conflict in managing the demands of their work and non-work life. These findings suggest that if veterinarians (employers or employees) are experiencing unacceptable levels of job stress, then they should evaluate their own work-related factors. By evaluating each of the work-related stressors identified in this study, a reduction in veterinary job stress may occur.