Monitoring stress among internal medicine residents: an experience-driven, practical and short measure.
Residents experience severely high levels of stress, depression and burnout, leading to perceived medical errors, as well as to symptoms of impairment, such as chronic anger, cognitive impairment, suicidal behavior and substance abuse. Because research has not yet provided a psychometrically robust population-specific tool to measure the level of stress of medicine residents, we aimed at building and validating such a measure. Using an inductive scale development approach, a short, pragmatic measure was built, based on the interviews of 17 medicine residents. The Internal Medicine Residency Stress Scale (IMRSS) was then administered in a sample of 259 internal medicine residents (199 females, 60 males, MAge= 25.6) along with the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale, Maslach Burnout Inventory, Satisfaction With Life Scale and Ways of Coping Checklist. The IMRSS showed satisfactory internal reliability (Cronbach's α = .86), adequate structural validity - studied through Confirmatory Factor Analysis (χ2/df = 2.51, CFI = .94; SRMR = .037, RMSEA = .076) - and good criterion validity - the IMRSS was notably strongly correlated with emotional exhaustion (r = .64; p < .001) and anxiety (r = .57; p < .001). Because of its short length and robust psychometric qualities, the use of the IMRSS is recommended to quickly and frequently assess and monitor stress among internal medicine residents.
a Department of Psychology , Dyson College of Arts and Sciences, Pace University , New York , NY , USA.
Nils
N
Myszkowski
b Faculté de Médecine, Département de Médecine Générale , Université Paris Descartes, Sorbonne Paris Cité , Paris , France.
Barbara
B
Villoing
c Laboratoire Adaptations Travail-Individu , IUPDP, Université Paris Descartes, Sorbonne Paris Cité , Boulogne-Billancourt , France.
Franck
F
Zenasni
b Faculté de Médecine, Département de Médecine Générale , Université Paris Descartes, Sorbonne Paris Cité , Paris , France.
Philippe
P
Jaury
d Laboratoire de Psychopathologie et Processus de Santé , IUPDP, Université Paris Descartes, Sorbonne Paris Cité , Boulogne-Billancourt , France.
Emilie
E
Boujut
D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007388:Internal Medicine / Q000193:education*; D007396:Internship and Residency; D008297:Male; D000073397:Occupational Stress / Q000175:diagnosis*; D010820:Physicians / Q000523:psychology*; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales / Q000592:standards*; D011594:Psychometrics / Q000295:instrumentation*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results
Medicine residency; psychometric evaluation; residents stress