Objective To identify the association between working conditions, stress burnout and psychosomatic manifestations in hospital doctors in Mexico City.

Methods A cross-sectional study was conducted with 724 residents and medical doctors in seven hospitals from Mexico City. The sample was made for convenience. An instrument was applied to determine socio-demographic characteristics and working conditions; to evaluate stress, burnout and psychosomatic manifestations, Wolfang, Maslach and Kroenke inventories were used. They had a reliability of 0.91, 0.83 and 0.78 respectively.

Results 55% were men, the median age was of 32 years. 51% were residents and 49% were medical doctors. 23% of the former and 15% of the latter had stress. There were significant differences in working conditions of residents and doctors. Also it was an association among working conditions, stress, burnout and psychosomatic manifestations, p < 0.005. The risk to present severe psychosomatic manifestations was 3.5 times in whom had a high stress level (CI: 2.45–5.33), There was also 65% more in residents, There were 3 times more risk for severity of symptoms in who perceived supervision (CI: 1.49–2.9) and excessive workload (IC 2.06–4.11). Little freedom to work was 2 times higher (CI: 1.82–3.77). The prevalence of emotional exhaustion was 44% for residents and 23% in doctors, p < 0.001. The level of depersonalization was 51% and 46%, respectively, p = 0.004. Both had significant differences according to the working conditions and the severity of symptoms, p < 0.05. Conclusions: There were significant differences in the levels of stress, burnout and severity of symptoms according to the working conditions. The more worse conditions the higher percentages.