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Abstract
Background
As the needs for home care increase, contact with patients and jobs out of the pharmacy such as the patients’ homes have increased, and there is concern that the situation increases pharmacists’ work-related stress. Stress deteriorates pharmacists’ quality of life (QOL) and affects the quality of services they provide. In this study, we developed a scale for the measurement of stress of pharmacists engaged in home care and evaluated it in pharmacists in 3 prefectures of the Tokai district, Japan.
Methods
Based on the stress factors of pharmacists in home care extracted by previous studies, a 59-item questionnaire was developed. The questionnaires were sent to 1785 pharmacies engaged in home care in 3 prefectures of the Tokai district, and anonymous responses were obtained from 399 (valid response rate: 22.4%). The answers to each question were scored using 5-point scale (1: I feel no stress to 5: I always feel strong stress).
Results
As a result of factor analysis, the Pharmacist’s Stress Scale for Home Care (PSS) was prepared with 51 items, i.e., 14 related to the first factor, “difficulty and feeling of incompetence in patient care”, 9 related to the second factor, “relationship with superiors and work environment”, 13 related to the third factor, “burdens related to work load and work contents”, 10 related to the fourth factor, “communication with patients and families”, and 5 related to the fifth factor, “communication with other professions”. Cronbach’s α coefficients for the entire scale and each factor were ≥ 0.833, and sufficient internal consistency was obtained.
Conclusions
The scale developed in this study is considered to be useful for the measurement of stress of pharmacists derived from interpersonal work and home care services. Leaving the job and burnout are expected to be prevented by perceiving the stress level of the pharmacists by themselves using this scale and coping with stress.
Supplementary Information
The online version contains supplementary material available at https://doi.org/10.1186/s40545-023-00610-8.
Supplementary Information
The online version contains supplementary material available at https://doi.org/10.1186/s40545-023-00610-8.
Acknowledgements
The author is deeply grateful to the pharmacists of the pharmacies providing insured services in 3 Tokai districts for their cooperation in the survey for this study, and to Medical English Service carefully proofreading the manuscript.
Author contributions
All listed authors meet authorship criteria and no others meeting the criteria have been omitted. MH made substantial contributions to conception and design of the study. MH acquired data. AK, MH, and KM analysed and interpreted the data and were involved in drafting the manuscript. All authors (AK, MH, HK, and KM) read and approved the final manuscript.
Funding
No funding was provided for this study.
Availability of data and materials
The data collection tools are attached as an additional supporting file within the text.
Declarations
Ethics approval and consent to participate
The study was approval (R1–8) by the Meijo University Ethical Review Board in compliance with the Ethical Guidelines for Medical and Health Research Involving Human Subjects. Responses were gathered anonymously and participation in the study was on a voluntary basis.
Consent for publication
Not applicable.
Competing interests
The authors declare that they have no competing interests.
Supplementary Information
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