Work-related stress and associated factors among health professionals working in Ambo town public health facilities, West Shoa Zone, Ethiopia, 2021: a cross-sectional study

OBJECTIVES: To assess work-related stress (WRS) and associated factors among health professionals working in Ambo town governmental health facilities, in 2021. DESIGN: Institution-based analytical cross-sectional study. SETTING: Institution-based analytical cross-sectional study was conducted in Ambo town from 15 July 2021 to 15 August 2021. A simple random sampling technique was used to select 420 participants. Data were collected by using structured self-administered questionnaire. Descriptive statistics was used to show the magnitude of WRS. Multivariate logistic regression was employed to identify variables that are significantly associated with WRS at 95% CI and p value <0.05. PARTICIPANTS: A total of 407 participants were involved in the study making the response rate 96.9%. The age of the respondents ranged from 20 to 52 with the mean age of 29 years (SD=4.8). Among all participants, 261 (64.1%) were male health professionals. RESULTS: This study found that the overall prevalence of WRS was 52.33% (47.5, 57.2). Being female (adjusted OR (AOR)=1.73, 95% CI 1.06, 2.81), home-work interface (AOR=1.93, 95% CI 1.19, 3.14), job insecurity (tendency not knowing continue current job (AOR=3.22, 95% CI 1.87, 5.56) and major life events (serious injury to close relatives (AOR=3.13, 95% CI 1.68, 5.84), death of close relative (AOR=2.09, 95% CI 1.16, 3.77), being violated by other (AOR=3.10, 95% CI 1.65, 5.83) and anything else seriously upset (AOR=2.63, 95% CI 1.60, 4.32) were factors significantly associated with WRS. CONCLUSION: The prevalence of WRS among health professionals working in Ambo town public health facilities was high as compared with other studies. Sex, job insecurity, home-work interface and occurrence of major life events were factors that positively related to WRS and make the work of health professionals stressful. Health facilities, programme managers and policy makers should consider those identified factors while designing public health interventions to reduce WRS among health professionals.