Frecuencia de estrés en el personal docente de la carrera de medicina de la Universidad de Cuenca. Cuenca – 2024

Abstract

Background: stress is a physiological process the organism generates to adapt to constant environmental changes and pressure situations. In the field of academic medicine, one of the few populations studied are teachers, who have been shown to suffer high levels of stress inherent to their profession, which leads to a great impact on their physical and mental health. Objective: to determine the frequency of stress in the teaching staff of the medical school of the University of Cuenca in the period 2024. Methods: a descriptive research was carried out with 129 teachers who signed the informed consent. The data on sociodemographic variables were collected in a form prepared by the authors, and for the information about stress level, the validated questionnaire: Symptomatic Stress Scale (Seppo Aro) was applied. Results: the most frequent stress level was "normal" with 58.9%; the main associated symptom was headache, which occurred in 58.9% of teachers. Pathological stress was found in 14.7% of women and 15.5% of specialists. Conclusions: the majority of teachers experienced a normal level of stress, while pathological stress predominated in women and specialists.