Emergency Medicine Specialists' Understanding of Stressful Conditions and Coping strategies: A qualitative content analysis.

INTRODUCTION: The stressors in emergency medicine and the coping strategies that can help decrease stress have not been well understood. Therefore, our aim was to explain to emergency medicine specialists the perceived stressors and useful coping strategies in the emergency departments in 2024. METHODS: The present study is a conventional qualitative content analysis with an inductive approach. Data were collected using open-ended, semi-structured individual interviews. The participants were emergency medicine specialists of all medical universities in the country. The contents were analyzed using the Graham and Longman content analysis method. RESULTS: Of 19 participants, the majority were in the 40- to 49-year age group, married, and male. The majority were assistant professors and associate professors of medicine with 10 to 19 years of work experience, who underwent virtual interviews. The participants' statements revealed three stressor categories with 15 subcategories: individual stressors, concurrent stressors, and collateral stressors. In addition, three stress-reducing coping strategies categories with 15 subcategories were extracted: active individual adaptation, treatment optimization, and receiving support. CONCLUSION: The medical field is inherently stressful, but not all stressors faced by medical professionals are individual in nature. Some stressors occur simultaneously and laterally that are not individual but organizational and environmental. The coping strategies explained were active personal adaptation, optimizing treatment, and receiving support. In other words, in addition to the need for medicine to actively resolve damaging stressors with individual self-care, medicine needs comprehensive internal and external support.