International Journal of Human and Health Sciences. Supplementary Issue: 2019
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.31344/ijhhs.v0i0.168

 

S50 
 

Marginalised Medical Officers; Do We Care? 
 
Ahmad Zulfahmi Mohd Kamaruzaman1, Mohd Ismail Ibrahim1, Anees Abdul 

Hamid2. 
 
1Department of Community Medicine, School of Medical Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia,  Kelantan, 
Malaysia; 
2Kelantan State Health Department, 15200 Kota Bharu, Kelantan, Malaysia  

 

ABSTRACT  

 

Introduction: Medical officers are responsible to give health services to population. Ironically, 
they also suffer from unhealthy consequences in the mould of job strain.  
 

Objective:  Thus, the main aim of this study is to determine the job strain among medical 
officers in health clinics (HCs), Kelantan and its associated factors. 

 
Methods: This was a cross-sectional study of the prevalence and risk factors of job strain 

among medical officers in HCs. The study was conducted between January and April 2019 

using simple random sampling involving a total number of 232 medical officers. The selected 

medical officers were given the Malay version of validated Job Content Questionnaire (JCQ) 

in order to investigate job strain. There were three components investigated and two of them; 

decision latitude and psychological demands were applied to define job strain. The median 

score was utilized as the cut-off point to separate high and low result of the data. High 

psychological demand with concurrent low decision latitude resulted in high job strain. The last 

component investigated was social support (co-worker and supervisor support). The data were 

presented descriptively and logistic regression was used to find the association for the job strain.  

Results: The prevalence of high job strain among medical officers serving in HCs, Kelantan 

was 22.4 percent. Supervisor support was significantly associated with job strain. 

 
Conclusion:  A high proportion of medical officers in HCs suffered high job strain. Supervisor 
support proved to be substantial in relieving job strain. 

 
Keywords: Job strain, Job Content Questionnaire, health clinics