Abstract
BackgroundGeneral opinion is that doctors are increasingly dissatisfied with their job, but few longitudinal studies exist. This study has been conducted to investigate a possible decline in professional and personal satisfaction among doctors by the turn of the century.MethodsWe have done a survey among a representative sample of 1 174 Norwegian doctors in 2002 (response rate 73 %) and compared the findings with answers to the same questions by (most of) the same doctors in 1994 and 2000. The main outcome measures were self reported levels of life satisfaction and job satisfaction according to the Job Satisfaction Scale (JSS).ResultsMost Norwegian doctors are happy. They reported an average life satisfaction of 5.21 in 1994 and 5.32 in 2002 on a scale from 1 (extremely dissatisfied) to 7 (extremely satisfied). Half of the respondents reported a very high level of general life satisfaction (a score of 6 or 7) while only one third said they would have reported this high level of satisfaction five years ago. The doctors thought that they had a higher level of job satisfaction than other comparable professional groups. The job satisfaction scale among the same doctors showed a significant increase from 1994 to 2002. Anaesthesiologists and internists reported a lower and psychiatrists and primary care doctors reported a higher level of job satisfaction than the average.ConclusionNorwegian doctors seem to have enjoyed an increasing level of life and job satisfaction rather than a decline over the last decade. This challenges the general impression of unhappy doctors as a general and worldwide phenomenon.
Highlights
General opinion is that doctors are increasingly dissatisfied with their job, but few longitudinal studies exist
For 886 of the doctors we had job satisfaction data from 1994 and 2000, for 981 we had such data from 2000 and 2002, and for 841 from 1994 and 2002. 722 doctors were registered at all three points in time
With the exception of aviation pilots, who were believed to be on the same level of satisfaction, the respondents thought themselves to be more satisfied with their job than six other professional groups mentioned
Summary
We have done a survey among a representative sample of 1 174 Norwegian doctors in 2002 (response rate 73 %) and compared the findings with answers to the same questions by (most of) the same doctors in 1994 and 2000. - They were asked to rate on a scale from 1 (extremely dissatisfied) to 7 (extremely satisfied) the question: "When you think about your life at the moment, would you say that by and large you are satisfied with life or are you mostly dissatisfied?" Many of the same doctors had answered this question in 1994. On a similar scale they were asked to indicate how they would have answered this question five years ago and how they expected to rate it five years ahead. The distribution of responses to these questions is sufficiently close to normal to use parametric tests
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