Occupational stress in a public mental hospital: the psychiatrist's view

Although state mental hospitals face a critical shortage of psychiatric manpower, there have been no studies of how psychiatrists view their roles and responsibilities within the public mental health system. In this study, a modification of the proportionate scaling method developed by Holmes and Rahe is used to measure and rank the stress-producing potential of 60 items identified by psychiatrists at Saint Elizabeths Hospital in Washington, D.C., as sources of stress. Results of the analysis show that most of the events rated as highly stressful fall into the category of administrative and organizational shortcomings.