Abstract
This study was conducted in order to measure the job stress levels of pharmacists who are managers of free pharmacies operating in Adıyaman and to reveal whether the work stress they experience differs in terms of socio-demographic characteristics. Among the free pharmacists in Adıyaman, which is the population of the study, 73 free pharmacists who voluntarily participated with the simple random sampling method formed the sample of this study. SPSS 22.0 package program and Microsoft Excel program were used in order to analyze the data obtained by questions about socio-demographic characteristics, and expressions related to the scale of job stress. As a result of the research, it was concluded that the general job stress levels of pharmacists working in Adıyaman province are very high. However, when the perceived job stress levels of free pharmacists were examined in terms of their gender, it was observed that the job stress levels of female pharmacists were significantly higher than that of male pharmacists. However, there are no significant differences between free pharmacists' perceived job stress levels in terms of marital status, generation status and job experience. The conclusion reached is alarming in terms of the physical and mental health of free pharmacists, since the time interval for the data is October, November and December in 2019. Because, according to the results of this study conducted before the pandemic, the very high level of work stress perceived by free pharmacists can be considered as an indication that free pharmacists may experience physical and psychological problems in the near future, as stress levels are predicted to increase further when evaluated with the COVID-19 pandemic.