Background: On-call duty has been shown to be associated with health problems among physicians. However, it cannot be abolished, as patient safety has to be assured. Thus, we need to find factors that could mitigate the negative health effects of on-call duty.
Methods: The cross-sectional questionnaire of the buffering effects of organizational justice, job control, and social support on on-call stress symptoms was sent to all working Finnish anesthesiologists (n=550).
Results: The response rate was 60% (n=328, 53% men). High organizational justice, job control, and social support were associated with a low number of symptoms while on call or the day after in crude analysis and when adjusted for age, gender, and place of work. Only the association between justice and symptoms was robust to additional adjustments for on-call burden and self-rated health. In the interaction analysis among those being on call at the hospital, we found that the higher the levels of job control or organizational justice, the lower the number of symptoms.
Conclusions: Job control and organizational justice successfully mitigated stress symptoms among those who had on-call hospital duties. It would be worth enhancing decision-making procedures, interpersonal treatment, and job control routines when aiming to prevent on-call stress and related symptoms.