Stress and Coping Behavior of Out-patients in Yasothon Province

Objective: Due to a current lifestyles that forces people to struggle their lives, we are going to a stage of mind control problems which can lead to stressful conditions. This can cause health and mind problems which contribute to a crime, sadness, loneliness, hopelessness, etc. In addition, types of health services play a major role in stress conditions which may be caused by internal and external factors affecting the patients. Methods: The study aimed to assess the relationship between stress levels and personnel characteristics, especially the evaluation of stress levels in relationship to different health services and other factors. A total of 809 outpatients visited different health care services (e.g., governmental hospital, private hospitals, health care centres, etc) at Yasothon. They were asked to collaborate on this project by filling out a questionnaire survey. The contents of a survey related to volunteers' feeling and stress coping behaviors over the last 2 months after visitng different health care services. This project was conducted from March to June in 2003. The data were analyzed by using SPSS which included; 1) frequency, 2) percentage, 3) mean, 4) standard deviation (S.D.), 5) t-test, 6) Chi-square, 7) Correlation and 8) One-way ANOVA. Results: The results revealed that most of volunteers had normal stress level (43.1%). When compared between stress levels and the characteristics of economic and social status, we found that gender was not related to statistically significant difference (p>0.05) in stress level. However, other factors including age, education, occupation, and income, related to stress levels were statistically and significant difference (p