Objective: Little is known about the contributing factors of mental health among veterinarians in Hong Kong. This qualitative study aimed to examine potential contributing factors that lead to their stress and poor mental health.
Procedures: Potential participants were screened and recruited using purposive and snowball sampling to maximise variations. Semi-structured interviews were conducted between December 2020 and April 2021. The data collection and analysis adopted the constructivist grounded theory's three-stage coding process and were thematically coded and analysed.
Results: Eighteen veterinarians took part in the study. Intra-professional stress was classified by stressors from individual veterinarians, expectations of their workplace, and shared values among the profession. Participants expected themselves to exhibit professionalism when under low-quality workplace leadership with restrictions from the profession's institutional regulations and resources. The urbanised culture and cyberbullying phenomenon in Hong Kong contributed significantly to the stress and impacted their mental well-being.
Conclusion and relevance: The quality of communication and the feasibility of meeting expectations were overarching concepts associated with intra-professional stressors. While this paper focuses on stressors residing within the veterinary community, veterinarians' responses to expectations of the animal-health enthusiast community were equally influential. This study enabled an international comparison of the profession's distress from non-Anglosphere, urbanised city, and will shed light on the development of future research and practice to improve the mental health of veterinarians, which directly influences the well-being of the animals and their owners in Hong Kong.
Keywords: burnout; cyberbullying; mental health; qualitative research; stress; veterinarians.
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