Development of the Pharmacist's Stress Scale for Home Care (PSS) and evaluation of its reliability and validity

As the needs for home care increase, contact with patients and jobs out of the pharmacy such as the patients' homes have increased, and there is concern that the situation increases pharmacists' work-related stress. Stress deteriorates pharmacists' quality of life (QOL) and affects the quality of services they provide. In this study, we developed a scale for the measurement of stress of pharmacists engaged in home care and evaluated it in pharmacists in 3 prefectures of the Tokai district, Japan.

Based on the stress factors of pharmacists in home care extracted by previous studies, a 59-item questionnaire was developed. The questionnaires were sent to 1785 pharmacies engaged in home care in 3 prefectures of the Tokai district, and anonymous responses were obtained from 399 (valid response rate: 22.4%). The answers to each question were scored using 5-point scale (1: I feel no stress to 5: I always feel strong stress).

As a result of factor analysis, the Pharmacist's Stress Scale for Home Care (PSS) was prepared with 51 items, i.e., 14 related to the first factor, "difficulty and feeling of incompetence in patient care", 9 related to the second factor, "relationship with superiors and work environment", 13 related to the third factor, "burdens related to work load and work contents", 10 related to the fourth factor, "communication with patients and families", and 5 related to the fifth factor, "communication with other professions". Cronbach's α coefficients for the entire scale and each factor were ≥ 0.833, and sufficient internal consistency was obtained.

The scale developed in this study is considered to be useful for the measurement of stress of pharmacists derived from interpersonal work and home care services. Leaving the job and burnout are expected to be prevented by perceiving the stress level of the pharmacists by themselves using this scale and coping with stress.