Psychophysiological distress among health care professionals working in Chilean public hospitalsBackground: The public health reform in Chile resulted in changes in working conditions and organization of health centers.Aim: To examine the presence of psychophysiological symptoms in professionals of public hospitals in the Metropolitan Region and their association with current working conditions.Material and Methods: A questionnaire of quality of working life was applied to a sample of 80 physicians and 110 nurses.The questionnaire considers scales and open questions.Results: Nurses had a higher level of discomfort than physicians (p < 0.01) and had signifi cantly higher scores for emotional distress, physical fatigue, digestive disorders, headache, insomnia, back pain and muscle tension (p < 0.01).There were statistically signifi cant negative correlations between psychophysiological distress and working conditions (r = -0.418),social climate (r = -0.395),satisfaction with the organization (r = -0.337)and psychosocial well-being (r = -0.267).A regression model showed that 21% of the variance in psychophysiological distress was explained by working conditions, psychosocial well-being and adaptation to the organization.Conclusions: There is a relationship between the high prevalence of psychophysiological symptoms and bad working conditions of public health professionals.