DOCTORS’ ATTITUDE TOWARDS THEIR PSYCHOLOGICAL COMPETENCES AS A COMPONENT OF PROFESSIONAL SELF-REFLECTION

Abstract

The purpose of the research is to study doctors’ attitude towards the role of psychological competencies in their professional activities and its assessment as well as to investigate doctors’ self-assessment of their psychological knowledge, skills and abilities to demonstrate various forms of communication with certain groups of patients as an important component of professional reflection. Participating in the research doctors were different specialty experts of different age groups and experience, employed in multidisciplinary health care institutions. Materials and methods. A pilot sociological survey of department heads employed in a multidisciplinary health care institution with a focus group were followed with a sociological survey of a sample (40,9%) of the institution population of the doctors of various specialties, age and experience. Statistical analysis of the survey results was carried out with the use of Microsoft Excel software. The results. The assessment of the importance of doctors’ psychological competence in professional activity and doctors’ self-assessment of their psychological competence in various areas of professional work were obtained in the frame of the conducted research. Conclusions. The doctors’ self-reflective assessment of their psychological competencies proved the professional competencies and the corresponding motivational potential among health care workers need advancing. Relatively low scores of doctors’ self-assessment in certain types of professional psychological competence allow us to make a conclusion about the need to launch relevant training in the field of psychological competence. Among the topic issues the training should cover are the ability to prevent professional stress, professional deformation and professional burnout of a doctor; conflict management skills and interpersonal crisis situations at work; psychological knowledge, skills and communication skills with difficult patients in behavioral aspects. Analysis of the Pearson correlation coefficient of answers to various questions with data on age and professional work experience make it possible to conclude that both samples with a significant professional experience as well as elder respondents need taking an advanced training program in the field of psychological competence. Since psychological resilience and resistance to stress skills develop more efficient with life experience obtaining than through workplace experience, it makes possible to summarize that the need to conduct psychological training on stress resistance and resilience for doctors directly in the health care institution conditions, e.g. as a professional school.

Keywords

• doctors’ professional self-reflection
• professional psychological competences
• continuous professional development of doctors