Job stress of customer service representatives: focusing on the tertiary care hospitals and acute general hospitals

상급종합병원과 종합병원의 민원처리 담당 직원의 직무 스트레스 비교 분석

Although stress has been implicated to be a risk factor that can threaten physical and mental health, there have been no sufficient studies that analyze the different levels of stress among employees working in the different levels of the hospitals. We aim to identify the general characteristics of hospitals at different levels, to compare the stress levels among customer service representatives working in the tertiary care hospitals as well as acute general hospitals. In addition, we also wanted to analyze the relationship between the types of hospitals and the stress level. The work stress was measured using the Korean Occupational Stress scale. Study subjects' demographic characteristics and lifestyle factors were analyzed using analysis of frequency and multiple regression analysis. Our study revealed that the levels of medical facility were significantly associated with the levels of job stress(P=0.043), and the stress levels of employees working in the acute general hospital's medical facilities were higher than those who were working in tertiary care facilities. We also found that those with higher depression level tended to have higher job stress (P<0.001). Therefore, it is urgent to implement some kind of job stress interventions, especially in the acute general hospital's medical facilities. Moreover, further studies including social and policy research are necessary in order to analyze the overall impact of stress on physical and mental health and to reduce health inequalities among healthcare workers.