Psychosocial risk factors in medical personnel of a health service in Cartagena de Indias, Colombia

Abstract

Objective: to determine the variables associated with psychosocial risk factors among the doctors of a stateowned social welfare enterprise providing health services in Cartagena. Methodology: a cross-sectional study on a population of 197 doctors from the enterprise’s outpatient and emergency services. The istas21 questionnaire, a Spanish adaptation of the Copenhagen Psychosocial Questionnaire (copsoq), was used to assess psychosocial factors. Statistical analysis was performed using the program SPSS® version 17, and the non-parametric Mann-Whitney U test was applied to estimate the associations between variables. Results: 170 doctors participated in this study; 88.8% of which had favorable exposure to risk factors in the following dimensions: social support and quality of leadership and Double presence. 69.4% showed adverse exposure in the insecurity dimension. In the dimensions Insecurity and Double Presence, general practitioners were in worse conditions than specialists (Mann-Whitney U Prob<0.05). Additionally, doctors from the outpatient service showed more deterioration in the social support and quality of leadership dimensions than those from the emergency service (Mann-Whitney U Prob<0.05). As for the psychological demands dimension, doctors from higher socioeconomic strata showed higher unfavorable scores than those from lower strata (Mann-Whitney U Prob<0.05).

Keywords

• occupational risks
• occupational stress
• prevalence
• doctors
• work