Stress in postgraduate trainee doctors of public and private Universities of Karachi

ABSTRACT

To evaluate and compare stress level of Postgraduate trainee doctors in public and private sector Medical Universities. A comparative cross sectional study was conducted at Dow University of Health Sciences and Agha Khan University Hospital Karachi among Postgraduate Medical trainee who are doing FCPS, MCPS, and DCPS from Jan. 2008-Dec. 2008. A total of 207 doctors were selected by non-probability convenience sampling technique. Main outcome was major stress level of Medical trainees or resident. Out of the total 207 trainee doctors 62.3% were found to be under stress. Proportion of females with stress was 66.3%. Most of the married PGs 67.2% had high stress level. A large proportion almost 69.7% of doctors who were in stress belongeds to low income group. This study did not find any statistical significance of stress with respect to different demographic and socioeconomic variable that were age, gender, monthly income, specialty and university. The stress level of Postgraduate trainees in both the universities was found to be high. The stress was found to be high among female trainees but no risk factor showed significant association with stress. Every effort should be made to help the future healers in understanding the symptoms of stress and ways to deal with it effectively and safely