Medical professionals’ job satisfaction and telemedicine readiness during the COVID-19 pandemic: solutions to improve medical practice in Egypt

Abstract

BackgroundThe COVID-19 pandemic has impacted medical professionals’ job satisfaction and was a call to adopt telemedicine. Finding out how far medical professionals are satisfied and ready to use telemedicine would be important to improve medical practice.MethodsData was collected from 959 medical professionals from both the governmental and private health sectors in Egypt in 2021 using a specifically designed online questionnaire, to evaluate job satisfaction, perception of telemedicine, and propose solutions to improve medical practice.ResultsThe study revealed low to moderate job satisfaction at governmental (27.2%) and private (58.7%) sectors. Underpayment was the most reported challenge at both sectors (37.8% and 28.3%, respectively). Dissatisfaction with government salary was independently predicted by working at the Ministry of Health and Population (OR = 5.54, 95%CI = 2.39,12.8; p < 0.001). Wage increase (46.10%), medical training of professionals (18.1%), and management of non-human resources (14.4%) were the most proposed solutions to improve medical practice in Egypt. During the COVID-19 pandemic, 90.7% of medical professionals had practiced telemedicine with moderate level of perception of its benefits (56%).ConclusionsDuring the COVID-19 pandemic, medical professionals reported low to moderate job satisfaction and a moderate level of perception of telemedicine. It is recommended to analyze the healthcare financing system and provide continuous training of medical professionals to improve medical practice in Egypt.