Introduction The Burnout syndrome occurs frequently in health care workers. It is associated with stressors present in the medical work. These conditions are different between residents and doctors attached. The objective of this study was to identify the association between working conditions, stress burnout and psychosomatic symptoms in hospital physicians in Mexico.

Methods A cross-sectional study was carried out on a sample of 724 physicians in seven hospitals from Mexico City. An instrument was applied to determine socio-demographic characteristics and working conditions. To evaluate stress, burnout and psychosomatic manifestations, Wolfgang, Maslach and Kroenke inventories were used. They had a reliability of 0.91, 0.83 and 0.78 respectively

Result 55% of the population were men; the median age was of 32 years. 51% were residents and 49% were doctors attached. There were significant differences in the working conditions of residents and doctors, p<0.001. There was higher prevalence of stress in residents than in doctors, p=0.006 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, these had significant differences according to the working conditions. The risk of presenting severe psychosomatic manifestations was 3.5 times in those who had a high stress level (CI: 2.45 to 5.33). There were three times more risk for severity of symptoms in who perceived supervision (CI: 1.49 to 2.9) and excessive workload (CI: 2.06 to 4.11). The risk of burnout was twice for those who reported excessive workload and for those who performed guards and attend more than 20 patients per day. These differences were maintained by adjusting them by category on the job.

Discussion We found significant differences in the levels of stress, burnout and severity of symptoms according to the category and working conditions between residents and doctors attached.