[Occupational stress as the cause of psychosomatic and mental disorders]

Occupational stress is caused by occupational or workplace factors, individual factors and social factors. These factors are the cause of many patients having to visit a psychosomatic outpatient clinic. We examined state of employment, type of occupation, type of disease, and factors causing occupational stress of 796 patients visiting our psychosomatic outpatient clinic for the purpose of studying the relation between occupational stress and psychosomatic and mental disorders. The rate of employment was 62.6% for men and 28.1% for women. By type of occupation, there were many office workers, blue-collar workers, and medical staffs except students and housewives. The prevalent diseases were mood disorders, anxiety disorders, and neuromuscular diseases in this order. The most prevalent cause of diseases in male patients (56.3%) was the occupational or workplace factors, while the most prevalent cause of diseases in female patients (42.4%) was the individual factors. These results indicated that almost half of the patients had occupational stress as the cause of their psychosomatic and mental disorders. When treating patients with occupational stress, it is important to work in close cooperation with their superiors or colleagues at work and occupational health physicians, as well as using an ordinary psychosomatic approach.