Abstract

Generally tools for assessing job stress include targeting questions for workers or administrative staff. The inventory Wolfgang stress for health professionals, including those that are specific to the work of medical doctors, because of this we carried out the validation of the instrument. We applied it to 724 physicians in seven hospitals in Mexico City. The instrument showed validity of content and construct and high internal consistency, Cronbach’s alpha was 0.915. The principal component extraction was based on two factors that, given the difference in the grouping of items and explanation of variances, we called 1) working tension for excess liability, conflicts, lack of recognition in the job and professional uncertainty, and 2) Commitment to patients. We found stress average levels in physicians above that those reported in other studies.