The Relationship between Occupational Stress & Related Injuries among Physician’s Assistants: A Case-Control Study

  Background and Objective: Job stress can have a direct impact on the incidence of work-related injuries and unsafe behavior and the highest rates of occupational injuries are in the health professions. Therefore, as we did not find any studies regarding the physician's assistants job stress; this research was performed to determine the relationship between job stress and occupational injuries among physician's assistants working at different units of hospitals affiliated to Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences.   Materials and Methods: This analytical study (case – control) was performed among physician's assistants working at 5 hospitals affiliated to Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences. 50 cases (with occupational injuries) were compared with 50 controls (without occupational injuries) about job stress. Job stress was measured by Osipow questionnaire with 6 domains; validity (content) and reliability, were confirmed by Cronbach's alpha = 0.89. The Mann-Whitney test for comparison of means and chi-square test for comparison of proportions were used.   Results: The mean stress scores did not show significant difference between the two groups in all domains except in role ambiguity and role boundary. After grouping stress scores, we observed significant differences in all domains, except in the responsibility (p=0.11). The stress score due to responsibility was very high for case (84.6%) and control (71.4%) groups. Maximum odds ratio was estimated in the role ambiguity field (OR= 8.36).   Conclusion: Because of some unavoidable stressors in medical practice and the necessity of preventing mental and behavioral effects of stress; implementing measures and actions to improve the quality of working life, education and coping strategies, are the duties of the departments, and the director of the hospital, in order to maintain the health of the current staff and to prevent their displacement. &nbsp