Stressors and psychological symptoms of family practice residents and spouses

Abstract

Fifty-nine family practice residents and their spouses from one university-based and three community-based residency programs were studied to assess the frequency of stressful events in their lives and to quantify adverse psychosocial effects associated with that stress. A modified version of a questionnaire produced and tested by the University of Minnesota and the widely used, standardized Symptom Checklist-90 (SCL-90) were used to assess stress and psychological symptoms. There was a high correlation between high numbers of stressful events in the residents' and spouses' lives and high ratings of psychological symptoms. This finding was particularly true for the female residents. Overall, the residents' responses were near the mean for a nonpatient group used as a normative comparison on each of the nine subscales of the SCL-90 and on the overall mean for the entire scale. This finding indicated that the residents, although their lives were quite stressful, were handling the stress without major problems. The residents and their spouses also answered questions about 10 therapeutic interventions concerning stress and indicated which interventions they preferred.