Abstract
This paper considers the question posed by Casalino and Crosson asking whether we should care about doctors’ levels of satisfaction. It focuses initially on the evidence that satisfaction is a part of an individual’s emotional state which in turn allows us to offer studies showing that doctors perform less well when they are stressed. It goes on to consider a large-scale survey showing a direct relationship between the satisfaction levels of healthcare staff and a variety of quality outcomes and focuses in particular on the concept of staff engagement in this regard. Finally, it considers the role of management and context on the satisfaction and mental health of healthcare staff in general. It concludes that, yes, we should care about doctors’ levels of satisfaction.
Highlights
Contact: Jenny Firth-Cozens Centre for Patient Safety and Service Quality Imperial College London St Mary's Campus Norfolk Place London, W2 1PG, UK. jenny.cozens @gmail.com
It is possible to study the relationship of job satisfaction to mental health indirectly
The study found that all aspects of satisfaction, even concerning the adequacy of their pay, rose significantly as clinical symptoms improved (Firth-Cozens & Hardy, 1992). This suggests that looking at the effects of psychological distress as a proxy for job satisfaction, as Casalino and Crosson do, is a reasonable method to consider its effects on quality
Summary
Contact: Jenny Firth-Cozens Centre for Patient Safety and Service Quality Imperial College London St Mary's Campus Norfolk Place London, W2 1PG, UK. jenny.cozens @gmail.com. Casalino and Crosson provide many examples of the ways that the psychological state of doctors—burnout, depression, and stress—might affect the care that they give, they do not consider the extent to which these states correlate with dissatisfaction.
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