title: Perceived stress and stressors among house officers.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  House officers training has always been regarded as a highly stressful environment to doctors. The objectives of our study were to assess perceived stress and sources of stress among house officers.
  
  
  METHODS
  A cross-sectional questionnaire-based survey was carried out among house officers working in Civil Hospital, Karachi, Pakistan, and Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre, Karachi, Pakistan, during November and December, 2013. Perceived stress was assessed using perceived stress scale. A 15-item questionnaire was used to assess sources of stress and was graded by Likert scale (1 = very low, 5 = very high). To calculate the difference of mean for stressors by gender of house officers, t-test with 95% confidence interval was used.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The overall response rate was 81.5% (269 out of 330). One hundred twenty-nine (47.9%) were found to be under stress of whom 32 (24.8%) were males and 97 (75.2%) were females. Top five stressors reported by house officers were night calls, workload, time pressure, working alone, and coping with diagnostic uncertainty. Significant differences for stressors by gender were found for night calls (P < 0.05), unrealistically high expectation by others (P < 0.05), financial issues (P < 0.05), and lack of senior support (P < 0.05).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Majority of house officers working in Civil Hospital, Karachi, and Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre, Karachi, were under high level of stress. Therefore, immediate steps should be taken for control of stress and its management.
authors.affiliation: Department of Medicine, Dow Medical College, Dow University of Health Sciences, Karachi, Pakistan.
authors.forename: Maroof
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Hassan
authors.affiliation: Department of Medicine, Dow Medical College, Dow University of Health Sciences, Karachi, Pakistan.
authors.forename: Talal
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Hussain
authors.affiliation: Department of Medicine, Dow Medical College, Dow University of Health Sciences, Karachi, Pakistan.
authors.forename: Syed Mustajab
authors.initials: SM
authors.lastname: Ahmed
authors.affiliation: Department of Medicine, Dow Medical College, Dow University of Health Sciences, Karachi, Pakistan.
authors.forename: Tayyab Raza
authors.initials: TR
authors.lastname: Fraz
authors.affiliation: Department of Medicine, Dow Medical College, Dow University of Health Sciences, Karachi, Pakistan.
authors.forename: Zoha
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Rehmat
keywords: Diagnostic uncertainty; house officers; stressors