Parent being a physician: Any influence upon job stress in young physicians? A Norwegian prospective and longitudinal cohort study.

OBJECTIVE: To investigate whether being the child of a physician would be of importance for how young physicians experience job stress.

METHOD: In a national representative prospective and longitudinal study with five assessment points (NORDOC), young physicians were followed over twenty year after graduation from medical school.

RESULTS: Female physicians with a physician parent reported higher levels of job stress over the whole period compared with males with a physician parent. This gender difference did not occur within the group without a physician parent. Male young physicians showed a trend (not quite significant) to be less stressed than their peers without a physician parent. Women physicians were overrepresented in a group with persisting high stress level over the period.

CONCLUSIONS: Male physicians with physician parent reporting lower stress levels than their female peers can be interpreted as a consequence of male physicians having more male models during their first working years as the main proportion of older physicians still are men. A father-son relationship may also promote an easier way to lower stress and achieve an identification with the role of doctor than for the females with a father-daughter relationship. With the increasing number of female physician, this gender difference may be prone to changes over time.