BACKGROUND:

According to the U.S. Occupational Information Network, out of 900 professions, that of urologist was one of the most stressful in 2016, more so than that of police officer, fire fighter, or anesthesiologist.

OBJECTIVES:

To determine the prevalence of stress and burnout in Mexican urologists and identify their causes.

MATERIALS AND METHODS:

A descriptive, analytic, cross-sectional study was conducted, applying a short version of the stress and burnout inventory to Mexican urologists. The sociodemographic characteristics were registered. Descriptive statistics (central tendency, standard deviation) were used to describe the demographic profile. Each individual was classified by stress level: mild, intermediate, or high, employing inferential statistics (contingency tables, ꭓ2 test, and the Fisher’s exact test). The data were analyzed using the SPSS©IMB-Version-21 program. Statistical significance was set at a p < 0.05.

RESULTS:

One hundred thirty-seven questionnaires were randomly applied. Mean age of the urologists was 45 years (SD ± 9), 59% worked at both a public healthcare institution and in private practice (mixed practice), and surgery was the most stressful professional activity (31%). Stress levels were mild in 75 urologists (54%), moderate in 41%, and severe in 2.1%. The most frequent symptoms were asthenia (17.5%), binge eating (17.4%), and headache (12%). The variables that had an impact on stress in the Mexican urologist were: young age, working in a public health institution, and a monthly income under $50,000.00 MXN (p = 0.05).

CONCLUSIONS:

Stress is a common condition in urologic practice, but the levels of stress in the urologists surveyed were not as high as those reported in other countries. Youth, work overload, especially in the public healthcare institutions, and low income were the factors involved.

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