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ObjectiveTo identify the association between working conditions, stress burnout and psychosomatic manifestations in hospital doctors in Mexico City.MethodsA 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.Results55% 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.

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.