JOB SATISFACTION AMONG PHYSICIANS IN BULGARIAN GENERAL PRACTICE

Abstract

Research on the professional satisfaction of doctors is especially relevant today, in relation to the crisis with medical staff. The purpose of this article is to study the factors of job satisfaction of general practitioners. An empirical sociological survey was conducted among general practitioners in the Stara Zagora region. The method used is a face-to-face interview. The approved Warr-Cook-Wall (WCW) toolkit is implemented - a questionnaire modified by the research team. The study includes 223 general practitioners, which determines the high responsiveness: 94.9%. The results show that GPs are mostly satisfied with the factors related to the autonomy of the profession. The clinical freedom defined as the ability of general practitioners to choose the method of treatment of their patients is assessed to the greatest extent as satisfactory. Physicians are most dissatisfied with the regulatory framework they have to comply with and with the constant change of activities required in their daily practice. The questionnaire for the assessment of job satisfaction of GPs is applied for the first time among Bulgarian physicians. This assessment is useful for the formation of policies for human resource management in health care, as it identifies adverse trends and leads to certain solutions. Models of professional satisfaction influence the professional behavior, important for staying and leaving certain medical area and the emerging shortage of doctors in some specialties.

Keywords

• job satisfaction
• general practitioners
• dimensions of professional satisfaction
• empirical sociological research