Ergonomic and Workplace Stress Among Medical Practitioners in Malaysia

1.0 Introduction and Literature Review

Stress is a menace that negatively affects an individual’s thinking and mindset, resulting in a poor provision of services in the workplace (Yeow et al., 2021). I conducted this study on the medical practitioners in Malaysia to understand what kind of situations result in stress in the healthcare sector. Stress is a common aspect of human life from birth to death; research has shown that human beings undergo stressful situations. However, stress is a concept caused by anything that results in instability in a human’s life. Scholars have argued that stressors bring about stresses in a professional field. Stressors are any relationship between an individual and the working environment (Salleh et al., 2018).

Additionally, hospitals are an environment that requires one to adapt quickly. Therefore, the report has shown that newly recruited medical practitioners face stressful challenges in transiting from a graduate to a medical practitioner in the workforce. Hospitals must give the issue maximum attention because the loss of newly employed health care providers has financial and patient safety effects (Labao et al., 2018).

The health sector cannot ignore the daily stressors; people respond to stresses automatically due to different life events. Stressful occurrences in the medical practitioners’ lives can grow periodically, resulting in health-related conditions. Furthermore, the most common stressors for medical practitioners in Malaysia are; uncertainty, incompetence, and impotence associated with patients’ emotions, uncontrolled relationships in contact with suffering, and overload.

2.0 Methods

A total number of 150 questionnaires were distributed to the medical officers in 5 public hospitals, 50 questionnaires to pharmacists in 7 private pharmacies, and 200 questionnaires to nurses in 3 private hospitals in different geographical locations in Malaysia to assess the impacts of workplace stress on service delivery by use of Statistical Package for Social Sciences. The number of questionnaires collected back filled was 286. The unfilled and incompletely filled forms were disposed of, giving a response rate to be 95%.

Stress is measured as an independent variable, while service delivery is calculated as the dependent variable. Service delivery can also be referred to as job performance which is the level of an employee’s outcome compared to the version of their colleagues on job-related behaviors and outcomes (Poniran et al., 2020). The three individual performances are summarized as absenteeism, quality, and new learning.

I used the pilot test to evaluate and determine the reliability of the sample collected. I conducted Cronbach’s Alpha reliability test, then later conducted the Pearson Correlation Analysis test to determine whether my hypotheses between independent and dependent variables are negatively related (Hijam et al., 2020).

Reliability test on independent (Causes of Stress)

Reliability test on dependent variables (Service delivery)

3.0 Findings and Data Analysis

From the findings, we find that various causes of stress in the workplace may affect the job performance of medical practitioners in Malaysia. The causes of these stresses include;

• Procedural Injustice

There is a close relationship between service delivery and procedural injustice. Out of the 300 questionnaires distributed, 120 medical practitioners indicated that many health caregivers do not offer the best services due to the stress resulting from procedural injustices. The result agrees with the findings of other researchers who conducted the study sometimes back in Malaysia (Ibrahim et al., 2019). It is due to the unfair treatment among medical practitioners. For instance, most nurses in Malaysia are not given fair treatment, i.e., they are not appropriately recognized in the healthcare sector and have poor salaries. Consequently, I found that unsatisfactory payment of medical officers is the most significant cause of their absenteeism (Samuel et al., 2021). Experienced injustice leads to adverse outcomes such as decreased service delivery and increased withdrawal behaviors.

• Workload

From my findings, 280 medical practitioners suggest that workload is the most significant cause of stress in the health care sector resulting in poor performance. Additionally, there is a very close correlation between workload and the implementation of medical practitioners. Most of the nurses’ and pharmacists’ correspondents state that they faced less time to execute the allocated tasks. Commonly, the workload can have defined in terms of the timing of the assigned work, speed of the work, the amount of the work, the variety of the work, and the overwhelming appearance of the work.

• Work-Family Conflict

From the findings, it is evident that there is a correlation between work performance and work-family conflict. Fifty questionnaires filled by Medical officers and pharmacists expressed a strong relationship between service delivery and work-family conflict among Malaysian medical practitioners. Stress can result from work-family conflict causing mental instability in the medical practitioners and impairing their judgments (Wahab et al., 2018). It may lead to wrong diagnoses and wrong medications for the patients. It significantly contributes to high mortality rates in Malaysian public and private hospitals. The result is consistent with the prior research on the dentist in Penang, Malaysia (Agus et al., 2020). There is a negative relationship between work-family conflict and medical service delivery. Medical officers lack enough time and energy to participate in home activities because of the overwhelming demand for their work. Consequently, work-family conflict is a significant cause of stress because of the incompatibility of the workplace and home needs.

4.0 Recommendations and Conclusion

Ergonomic and workplace stress among medical practitioners has affected the provisions of health care services in Malaysia. Therefore, I would recommend the Malaysian Ministry of Health create a Health commission that will look into the mental welfare of the medical practitioners. The commission can intervene to change the working conditions, increase communication skills, and modify the work schedules. Besides, I advise medical practitioners across hospitals in Malaysia to often take mental relaxation leave. Mental relaxation effectively reduces stress (Adnan et al., 2019). The health care workers should have a hobby that they often do and also participate in sports. Consequently, medical practitioners should have physical relaxation at least once per week. Physical relaxation such as massage is very effective for stress relief. It ensures that they are active, rejuvenated, and ready to perform their tasks (Cheung et al., 2018).

In conclusion, there is a shred of evidence that stress in the hospitals, nursing homes, pharmacies, and any other healthcare environment in Malaysia, harms medical practitioners. Consequently, it has resulted in the poor provision of healthcare services. It has led to increased mortality rates in Malaysian hospitals and the emotional breakdown of medical practitioners. Besides, based on my research, it is clear that nurses and midwives are the ones who suffer the most. Therefore, there must be interventions from the Ministry of Health to avert this problem in the health sector.

References

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