Occupational stress among healthcare workers in Japan

High distress levels in healthcare workers in Japan may deteriorate safe service provision.

To clarify job stress of healthcare workers, we compared Brief Job Stress Questionnaire (BJSQ) scores among physicians, nursing staff and administrative workers.

Healthcare workers (n=9,137) in 20 hospitals in Japan were asked to answer BJSQ. BJSQ is job stress questionnaire to measure "Job Stressors", "Stress Responses" and "Social Supports".

The "Total Health Risk" of the healthcare workers was 10% higher than the national average. While the physicians felt the stress of the quantitative and qualitative job overload, they had support from supervisors and coworkers and showed mild "Stress Responses". The nursing staff felt the stress of the quantitative and qualitative job overload at the same level as the physicians, but they did not have sufficient support from supervisors and coworkers, and showed high "Stress Responses". The administrative workers did not have sufficient support from supervisors and coworkers, but they experienced less stress as measured by the quantitative and qualitative job overload than the physicians or the nursing staff and showed moderate "Stress Responses".

Further studies are needed to clarify the mechanisms and the influence of other factors to the stress trait in healthcare workers.