Hospital pharmacists' job stresses: Managerial recommendation for professional work health

Pharmacist behavior studies are rare in the healthcare industry. Most of the identified researches reviewed in this study were conducted more than ten years ago. Few studies have led to hospital executives to lack concern over quality of occupational life of hospital pharmacists. This study aims to delineate the possible stress sources of hospital pharmacists and to understand how the demographics of hospital pharmacists are related to these possible stress sources. 247 hospital pharmacists responded to, by mail, the 44-item structured questionnaire covering six dimensions of stress in pharmacies: dispensing, work climates, consultation, management, hospital rules for the pharmacy, and healthcare industry environments. What was discovered is that the top-10 stress burdens applied to the areas of dispensing (accuracy, peer support, speed, and physical demands), pharmacy management (job complexity, academic publication requirements, and high labor turnover rate), and hospital rules (high frequency of changing drug brands, taking part in hospital activities, and equity of salary and fringe benefits). Further, hospital pharmacists' personal backgrounds, including gender, education, work experience, and their hospital accreditation status, were related to their job stress. Confronted with the aforementioned stressors, pharmacists need to appraise their significance and consider what resources and process designs could be used to help them cope with such stressors. The identified stress sources included in this developed survey could be applied in future research to gauge and recognize the effects of such stress on hospital pharmacists' work outcomes, including job satisfaction, quitting intentions, and personal health status. Finally, the managerial implications would be discussed further for the work health in pharmacist professionals.