ABSTRACT
Background: Different professions are under a great deal of stress related to a variety of occupational stress factors. These factors contribute to decreased job satisfaction, decreased work output, mental and physical exhaustion and absenteeism due to sickness. It often occurs when individuals' cannot cope with their job demands, physically or emotionally
Objective: To determine the frequency of stress among three highly challenged occupations which are doctors, engineers and teachers
Methods: The cross sectional study was conducted in the District South of Karachi using separate questionnaires for doctors, engineers and teachers. In this research the total of 600 individuals were included, 200 from each profession. Only those individuals were surveyed who are currently working in government institutions of this district. The data obtained was analyzed using SPSS v.20
Results: The results showed that engineers are under a higher level of stress as compared to doctors and teachers. Workload, lack of power and influence, office politics, inadequate or poor quality of training/management development and lack of encouragement are the major factors that are contributing to build stress in engineers
Conclusion: As the frequency of stressful activities found higher in engineer, their workload should be minimized and divided among the relevant posts rather than putting the entire burden on an individual. Office politics must be discouraged as this has proved to have detrimental effects on individual's life. Lack of knowledge, power, influence, training and encouragement has led to increased stress. Stress management programs will improve management, and good intrapersonal relationships