Occupational stress within the paramedic profession: an initial report of stress levels compared to hospital employees.

We report a study of occupational stress in 374 paramedics. Results indicate that this profession experiences a high degree of job-related stress relative to other medical personnel. In a component analysis of this stress the results show that job stress manifests itself as job dissatisfaction, organizational stress, and negative patient attitudes, but not as frequently as somatic distress.