The study involved the participation of 342 judges, questioned between March and June 2021. At the time, respondents were between 28 and 73 years old.
One fifth of judges have high levels of stress caused by work, admit work overload and social isolation, sometimes resorting to the consumption of alcohol and illicit substances to deal with the demands of work. More than a third said they had psychiatric or psychological support and took medication to manage anxiety and pressure. These are some of the results of the study “The occupational stress of Portuguese Judges: The contributions of the Stress Inventory for Forensic Professionals”, authored by Mariana Moniz, Mauro Paulino, Octávio Moura, Sandra Neves and Mário Simões.
The study that included the inpusupport from the Association of Portuguese Judges (AJP) and also from the Superior Council of the Judiciary (CSM) with the participation of 342 judges – around 25% of the total class – questioned between March and June 2021. At the time, the respondents were between 28 and 73 years old and had professional experience that varied from less than a year to 42 years. The majority were women (69%) from the Lisbon Metropolitan Area and the North and Center regions.
Noting that “occupational stress in forensic professions has not been adequately scrutinized in Portugal” the study authors advise that there be “an expansion of these studies, to a greater number of Judges and to several other samples of forensic professionals (lawyers, prosecutors, Execution Solicitors, technicians from the Institute of Legal Medicine