Medical personnel's experience and possibilities of managament of stress and work harassment at a specialized personal healthcare institution

Stress and colleagues’ work harassment is a modern problem in public health, and if it is not solved it may have negative influence on an employee, an organization and the state. Various scientific researches show that these problems are connected not only with one’s self-esteem at work but with employees’ mental and physical health. Goal of the work: to analyze medical personnel’s experience and possibilities of management of stress and work harassment at a specialized personal healthcare institution. Method of study. The study was carried out in May – August, 2010, at one of Klaipeda’s specialized personal healthcare institutions. Management of stress and work harassment was evaluated analyzing the organization’s internal documents. Medical personnel’s experience of stress and work harassment was evaluated by anonymous questionnaire survey of physicians, nurses and their assistants. Work harassment situations were evaluated using a work harassment scale (WHS, Bjorkqvist, Osterman et al., 1994). 179 respondents participated in the study. Results. The study revealed that physicians more often experience emotionally difficult periods at work (41.2 per cent) and nervous tension (38.3 per cent), as compared with nurses and they assistants. Almost one forth (23.6 per cent) of physicians evaluating their self-esteem at work for the six month period stated that their opinion had been disparaged, 45.5 per cent of respondents said they had experienced their colleagues’ doubts about the decision they had made. Assistants of nurses have felt physical tension in their work more often than physicians or nurses (correspondingly, 18.6, 8.8 and 9.6 per cent), while 38.6 nurses have felt overcriticized at work. Conclusions. Stress and work harassment in a medic’s work is a frequent phenomenon. These negative phenomena are connected with one’s position in an organization. According to the study results, physicians’ experience of work harassment is more related to evaluation of his/her working functions, while nurses and their assistants more often face colleagues’ work harassment in connection with evaluation of their personality and not the performed work