Table_1.DOCX

Abstract

Objective: The purpose of this study is to investigate the mental workload level of physicians in outpatient practice since the normalization of prevention and control of the COVID-19 pandemic in China and explore the subtypes of physicians regarding their mental workload. Methods: A cross-sectional survey of 1934 physicians primarily in 12 hospitals in 6 provinces in Eastern, Central, and Western China was conducted from November 2020 to February 2021. A latent profile analysis was performed to identify clusters based on the six subscales of the Chinese version of physician mental workload scale developed by our research team. Chi-square tests were performed to explore the differences in demographic characteristics of the subtypes among the subgroups, and multinomial logistic regression analysis was further conducted to identify the determinants of the subtypes of physicians. Results: Overall, the participating physicians reported high levels of task load but with high self-assessed performance (68.01±14.25) while performing communication work tasks characterized by direct patient interaction in outpatient clinics. About 33.8% of the participating physicians were identified as ‘high workload & high self-assessment’ subtype, compared to 49.7% ‘medium workload & medium self-assessment’ subtype and 16.4% ‘low workload & low self-assessment’ subtype. Physicians in ‘high workload & high self-assessment’ subtype had the highest mean mental workload score. Physicians who were female, younger, married, worse health status, had lower educational level and an average monthly income of 5001-10000 RMB, worked in tertiary A hospitals, more hours per week and more than 40 hours per week in outpatient clinics, saw more outpatients per day, and spent more time per patient but with higher outpatient satisfaction were more likely to belong to ‘high workload & high self-assessment’ subtype. Conclusion: Our findings can help provide a solid foundation for developing targeted interventions for individual differences across physicians regarding their mental workload. We suggest the hospital managers should pay more attention to those physicians with characteristics of the ‘high workload & high self-assessment’ subtype and strengthen the management of the workload of this subtype of physicians to reduce the risks of their mental health, and to maintain their high work performance in outpatient clinics.