Physical Therapist Employment-Related Stress Among Various Practice Settings

Recent literature has indicated that United States healthcare worker stress levels has been consistently high over the past several years. However, the impact of practice setting in the field of physical therapy was not explored. The purpose of this quantitative correlation study, using a cross-sectional approach, was to evaluate the perceived workplace stress levels of physical therapists (PTs) and to examine how the stress levels relate to specific practice settings and other demographic variables. Stress levels were identified by administering the Perceived Stress Scale and a demographic questionnaire was used to gather participant characteristic information. A total of 124 PTs completed the survey. Results indicated that most PTs experienced moderate (53.2%) or low (40.3%) job-related stress with no statistically significant difference between practice settings (F(2,121) = 0.442, p > 0.05). Further analysis showed that participants who reported receiving treatment/counseling services for stress (13.7%) and those who reported their PT employment as one of their primary stressors (64.5%) had statistically significantly higher stress than those reporting the opposite.