RESUMO
BACKGROUND: The medical workforce constitutes the foundation of the provision of health services in all countries. The effectiveness of health systems and the quality of health services are directly related to the performance of health workers. Satisfaction level of the job affects the quality of care for patients. An anonymous on-line survey was conducted with the aim to obtain a better understanding of the current morale of Chinese medical professionals. METHODS: An online cross-sectional questionnaire based survey was conducted during the period of Sep 10-23, 2015, via the platform provided by DXY (www.dxy.cn), which is the largest medical and paramedical related website in China. In addition to demographics of the participants, a particular question was asked to the participants, in current China do you regret you joined the medical profession? This initial report analyzed the relationship between the participants with 'No' or 'Yes' answers to their demographic characteristics. RESULTS: In total 2,356 DXY users completed the survey, including 1,740 males (73.82%) and 617 females (26.18%), with a mean age of 31.96±7.03 yrs. There were more participants from relatively economically developed eastern coast areas. The N/Y (no regret participants vs. regretted participants ratio) ratio for all participants was 1.06 (P=0.181). The N/Y ratio of males and females was 1.04 and 1.11 respectively, and there was no significant difference in this ratio among them. There were 1,549 participants from IIIA hospitals (65.72%, N/Y ratio =1.15, P=0.008), followed by IIIB & IIA hospitals (25.46%, N/Y ratio =0.87, P=0.086), IIB & II C hospitals (3.7%, N/Y ratio =0.83, P=0.394), and lastly 1A & 1B clinics (2.6%, N/Y ratio =1.35, P=0.249). A total of 1,323 participants (56.13%) were trainee doctors with N/Y ratio of 1.19 (P=0.002), followed by lecturer-level attending specialists (27.79%, N/Y ratio =0.81, P=0.009), associate principle doctors (12.43%, N/Y ratio =1.01, P=0.953), and lastly principle doctors (3.73%, N/Y ratio =1.59, P=0.033). Specialties with less stressful workload such as radiology and traditional Chinese medicine have the highest job satisfaction, while doctors in accident and emergency cluster have the least job satisfaction. Medical professionals from Yunnan, Gansu and Shanxi have relatively higher positive response (higher N/Y ratio), despite the fact that these are not the economically advanced regions in China; while Jiangsu, an economically advanced province, had relatively higher negative response (lower N/Y ratio). CONCLUSIONS: The morale of majority medical professional in China mainland is likely to be positive. Job satisfaction is inversely related to work related stress level, but may not related to the absolute income.
RESUMO
BACKGROUND: The professional moral and job satisfaction of medical profession remain highly disputed in media in China. On the other hand, there is wide disaffection of patients toward doctors in China. This survey aims to obtain a better understanding of the motivation of Chinese medical professionals. METHODS: An anonymous online cross-sectional survey, AME survey III, was conducted using the platform provided by DXY (www.dxy.cn) during the period of September 10-23, 2015. In total 2,356 DXY users completed the survey, including 1,740 males and 617 females, with a mean age of 31.96±7.03 yrs. RESULTS: The reasons (multiple choices) for career disaffection included poor patient/doctor relationship (88.6%), imbalance between workload and pay (79.5%), could not enter the preferred specialty (14.14%), and working in small clinics with no career progress (11.17%). If given the choice to enter the specialty as well as the hospital grade of their choice, 73.8% dissatisfied respondents replied they would like to be a doctor. For the dis-satisfied respondents, university teacher appeared to be the most popular career choice. The cited high workload was considered to be due to (I) imbalance in geographical allocation of doctors and insufficient training of doctors; (II) many red-tapism formalities; (III) Chinese patients often have unreasonable requests; (IV) over-examination and over-treatment; (V) high pressure to publish papers. One hundred and twelve respondents have their child/children attending university or graduated from university, 25.0% of them are pursuing a career in medicine. Nine hundred and ninety respondents have child/children while did not reach university age yet, among them 23.62% would like their child/children to study medicine. 64.87% of the 2,356 participants favor China to open up medical market to qualified foreign medical organizations to take part in fair competition, and 57.91% favor the government supporting regulated private hospitals. CONCLUSIONS: The moral and motivation of medical doctors in China are likely to be similar to other continuously evolving societies. Cost-effective use of existing resources should be explored as the first priority.