Assessment medicine represents an individual area of expertise that requires special skills and knowledge and it also put specific stress load on the assessment doctors. Different responsibility and the style of work, including special kind of contact with clients make this profession to different from other fields of clinical medicine. The specific work load may bring different stressors and cause specific mental load.

We have conducted an extensive research to determine the level of stress load and occurrence of possible signs of depression and other reactive mental illnesses among Czech assessment doctors. The research group consisted of all assessment doctors in the Czech Republic (n = 403) and a control group consisting of other medical and non medical professions (m = 403). The groups were compared on the basis of questionnaires evaluating levels of stress, depression and occurrence of other possible mental illnesses. General personality traits were evaluated too.

The results of the study: Assessment medicine doctors show higher incidence of stress related phenomenon as depression, burnout syndrome and other reactive psychiatrical signs comparing to other medical and non-medical professions (p < 0.01). This may be connected to specificity of the profession bringing specific stress load.

SUPPORTED BY THE RESEARCH GRANT GK MPSV-01-201.