Occupational stress in the mobile emergency care service

Abstract

This study aims to evaluate the levels of job stress among Marilia's Mobile Emergency Care Service professionals, consisting of an exploratory and descriptive study. Data collection was performed by a subject's identification formula and the instrument Escala de Estresse No Trabalho, an adaptation for Portuguese of the original questionnaire Job Stress Scale, created in 1988 by Töres Theorell. Data was analyzed using the software EPIINFO version 6.02. The research's population was composed of 60 individuals from different categories (nurses, nursing technicians, receptionists, physicians and drivers), and the analysis showed that the subjects have, at the same time, high levels of demand (exigencies and psychological pressures exerted by the job), control (the individual's capacity to use their intellectual abilities to exercise his or her work and have authority to decide how to do it) and social support (quality of the relationships established by the subject with their bosses and coworkers), consisting of a situation in which the professionals actively experience their work, with a low probability of job stress manifestation. These results remarkably differ from the impression sustained by nonprofessional people and even by health professionals of other specialties about the levels of stress related to the work on emergency, showing the necessity of analyzing the health services under a scientific point of view, in order to demystify beliefs and impressions that often do not match reality.