Correlations among occupational stress, burnout and psychopathological symptoms at Madrid’s area-9 outside hospital emergency care units

Abstract

This paper analyses the relationships among occupational stress, burn-out, psychopathological symptoms, and social and labour variables in a sample of 76 (85,25%) outside hospital emergency workers, doctors, nurses and assistants, in Madrid’s 9th Health Care Area. The assessment instruments applied are the Inventario de Estresores Laborales para Enfermería, by Reig and Caruana, the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) and the Symptom Checklist-90 Revised Questionnaire (SCL-90-R). High significant correlations were observed among occuptional stress, burn-out and psychopathological symptoms. The social and labour variables show significant correlations, but the values are lower. Doctors are the professionals with the highest and largest number of correlations. The differences observed in the various professional groups suggest the need for a different and specific intervention for each professional group.