Job Stress in Occupational Therapy: An Examination of Causative Factors

Abstract

This article, the first in a series of two on job stress in occupational therapy, reports the results of a postal survey which set out to identify factors that contributed to stress in a sample of Britain-based occupational therapists. Three hundred and ten NHS and LASS occupational therapists were surveyed between November 1989 and February 1990. The results indicated that four different dimensions of job stress were relevant to occupational therapists, and these were labelled ‘professional value’, ‘resources and demands’, ‘rewards and recognition’ and ‘patient contact’. Further analysis indicated that occupational therapists who worked longer hours, who had been in the job for a longer period of time, and who were employed in social services tended to score higher on the dimension of rewards and recognition. Employment at the level of basic grade, senior II or senior i tended to be predictive of a high score on the dimension of stress related to patient contact. Occupational therapists who had been qualified for longer periods of time tended to score lower on both these dimensions of job stress. This article explores possible explanations for these differences, and the second article will propose individual and organisational strategies for stress reduction.