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[Factors that influence primary care physicians' level of tiredness at work]
P Orozco López1, E García Martínez
1Area Básica de Salud de Castelldefels y Centro de Atención Primaria Gómez Acebo, Villaverde Alto.
Objective:
To relate the characteristics of working activity to the level of tiredness at work (low, medium and high).
Design:
A crossover, observational and random study.
Setting:
Primary Care Centres in Spain, belonging to the new sanitary model.
Participants:
116 doctors (75% General Practitioners, 19% paediatricians and 6% Interns in their third year of Family Medicine (R-3)). An anonymous survey sent by mail over five consecutive days, during a period without any epidemics. Tiredness at work was measured on a scale of 0 to 10 (nil to maximum) by means of 7 questions covering quantitative working activity (the number of patients seen, of discussions between nurse and doctor, of emergencies and home visits), its quality (the type of patient, the bureaucracy involved) and the doctor's length of experience.
Results:
The tiredness at work found was 4.7 +/- 1.6. Those who showed high levels of tiredness had greater working activity in both the quantitative and qualitative senses than those with medium tiredness; and these, in their turn, greater working activity than those with low tiredness. Doctors' length of experience did not affect the level of tiredness. General Practitioners were more tired than paediatricians and R-3.
Conclusions:
A doctor's tiredness at work is determined by the number of patients seen, the type of patient and the amount of bureaucracy and organisation. All these factors should be borne in mind when the doctor's working activities are organised.