Sources of Work-Stress among Hospital-Staff at the Saudi MOH

Objectives: To determine the sources of work-stress among the MOH hospital staff working in Riyadh City, Saudi Arabia, to examine the relationship between the socio-demographic variables and the level of work stress, and to studies the relationship between work-stress and the anticipated outcomes. Methods: This study applies the descriptive analytical research design. Doctors, nurses, technicians, administrators, and therapists working at five MOH hospitals were screened using a self-administe red questionnaire developed to serve the objectives of this study. 700 questionnaires were distributed and 414 were returned and valid for analysis. Frequencies, percentages, means, and standard deviations were used to present the descriptive analysis. Inferential analysis included two independent samples t-test, One way ANOVA, Pearson correlation, and stepwise multiple regression. The significance level used for the inferential statistics was 0.05. Results: The multiple regression analysis indicated that insufficient technical facilities, absence of appreciation, long working hours, and short breaks were significantly able to explain the variance in the level of work-stress among hospital staff. Pearson correlation showed that both age and experience showed significant negative relationship with work-stress level. Results also revealed that Saudi participants showed significantly higher level of work-stress than the non-Saudis. The rest of the socio- demographic and job variables showed no significant relationship with the level of work- stress. Occurrence of health problems, changing the hospital, changing the job, quitting the practice, and undesired relationship with coworkers were found to be correlated with work-stress. Conclusion: The level of work-stress among the MOH hospital staff seems to be high. This was due to insufficient technical facilities, absence of appreciation, long working hours, and short breaks. In addition, the older the employee and the more experience he/she has the less work-stress is experienced.