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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Public Health
Sec. Occupational Health and Safety
Volume 12 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2024.1480643
This article is part of the Research Topic Patient and Medical Staff Safety and Healthy Work Environment in the 21st Century View all 12 articles

Occupational stress profiles of prehospital and clinical staff in emergency medicine -A cross-sectional baseline study

Provisionally accepted
Christine Meyer Christine Meyer 1*Costanza Chiapponi Costanza Chiapponi 2Florentin von Kaufmann Florentin von Kaufmann 3Karl-Georg Kanz Karl-Georg Kanz 4Dominik Hinzmann Dominik Hinzmann 5
  • 1 Chair of Vegetative Anatomy, Institute of Anatomy, Faculty of Medicine, LMU Munich, Munich, Germany
  • 2 TUM School of Medicine and Health, Department of Surgery, Munich, Germany
  • 3 Munich Fire Brigade, Department for Command Services and Crisis Management Teams, Munich, Germany
  • 4 TUM School of Medicine and Health, Department of Trauma Surgery, Munich, Germany
  • 5 TUM School of Medicine and Health, Department Clinical Medicine, Department of Anesthesiology and Intensive Care Munich, Munich, Germany

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Background: Occupational stress among emergency medical staff remains a central problem. Prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, many studies were focused on the working conditions of clinical emergency staff, but few examined the occupational stress profiles of prehospital emergency dispatchers (ED).The aim of this study is therefore to provide baseline data on the differences in occupational stress profiles between prehospital and clinical emergency medical staff.Methods: ED, emergency nurses (EN), and trauma surgeons on duty (TS) were questioned using the established and validated standardized short version of the instrument for stress-related job analysis for hospital physicians (ISAK-K). Differences between occupational groups were compared using the Mann-Whitney U test.Our data indicate significant differences in perception of stressors between professional groups (p<.05), with ED showing the highest psychological stress, followed by EN. Social stressors and emotional dissonance were significantly higher in ED and EN compared to TS (p<.05). Time pressure was identified as major stressor for ED and TS, but not for EN (p<.01). All professions showed moderate high levels of uncertainty and frustration (p=n.s.). Support from colleagues and supervisors was the greatest positive resource for all professional groups (p=n.s.).In accordance with current literature, our results advocate for a re-evaluation of the identified stressors, as ED, EN and TS continue to show high levels of occupational stress. Training programs for coping with emotional dissonance and social stressors are likely to be crucial for reducing job stress among ED and EN.

    Keywords: Occupational stress and mental-physical health1, social stress and social support2, Emotional dissonance3, Emergency nurses4, EMS dispatch center5, Trauma surgeons6, emergency medical staff7, working condition analysis8

    Received: 14 Aug 2024; Accepted: 17 Sep 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Meyer, Chiapponi, von Kaufmann, Kanz and Hinzmann. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Christine Meyer, Chair of Vegetative Anatomy, Institute of Anatomy, Faculty of Medicine, LMU Munich, Munich, Germany

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.