Assessment of Satisfaction with Health Services among Prisoners-Descriptive Study.

AIM: The aim of the study was to assess the access of prisoners to healthcare services, as well as the level of satisfaction with the provided services and health assessment among prisoners. METHODS: The research was conducted in one of the penitentiary centers in Poland among people jailed between 1 January to 31 January 2020. The response rate of the self-administrated questionnaire was 52.05% (469/901) participants. There were 389 men and 77 women. RESULTS: Prisoners assessed access to health services including GP doctors, specialist doctors, dentists, and hospitals in 3 categories: "bad" ranged: 27.03-67.60%; "medium" ranged: 22.54-53.57%; "good" ranged: 7.02-33.96% depending on the type of arrest, but no statistical significance was demonstrated. Satisfaction with the health services defined as "bad" ranged: 25.00-61.11%; "medium" ranged: 18.97-55.56%; "good" ranged: 5.56-34.62% depending on the type of arrest but no statistical significance was demonstrated. Of 469 prisoners, 215 prisoners (45.84%) declared no addictions. The frequency of addiction does not differ depending on the place/type of punishment served (p = 0.9). In turn, 317 prisoners (68%) declared no chronic diseases. CONCLUSIONS: Most of the prisoners described access to health services as "bad", except female prisoners from a semi-open facility. In turn, satisfaction with healthcare services was most often assessed as "bad", except for temporarily arrested men and female prisoners from a semi-open facility.

The severity of work-related stress and an assessment of the areas of worklife in the service sector.

OBJECTIVES: The aim of the study was to examine the potential differences in the assessment of the severity of work-related stress, and in the global assessment of the areas of worklife and individual worklife dimensions in employees working in service occupations. MATERIAL AND METHODS: The research covered 61 emergency workers, 92 helping professionals, and 58 knowledge workers. A subjective assessment of the areas of worklife was carried out using the Areas of Worklife Survey, and the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS-10) was used to investigate stress severity. RESULTS: The research has revealed statistically significant differences between workers belonging to the 3 groups of service occupations in their assessment of the severity of work-related stress. The findings have shown that 26% of the variance of the Stress Severity Assessment variable is explained by belonging to a specific occupational group. Police officers and helping professionals experience comparably severe stress, which is significantly stronger than that experienced by the laboratory staff. Statistically significant differences have also been found between the studied groups in terms of the global assessment of all areas of worklife, as well as in the assessment of particular areas, i.e., control, rewards, fairness and values. No significant differences have been found with regard to the workload and community areas. CONCLUSIONS: Working in social service occupations, whether as emergency or helping professionals, may lead to a similar level of stress severity. The surveyed workers do not differ in their assessment of workload or of the sense of trust, cooperation and support received from their co-workers. Further research should be carried out to explore the sources of stress, which may be linked to other factors than the areas of worklife presented here, such as stress inducing contact with customers, environmental determinants of work, existing hazards to life or health, or the intrinsic predispositions of individuals performing specific types of work and gender. Int J Occup Med Environ Health. 2019;32(4):569-84.