[Needs and barriers of medical personnel in Catalonian occupational health services].

Abstract

Objective: to identify the difficulties and needs of medical professionals in occupational health services in Catalonia with respect to carrying out their functions, as prescribed by law.

Methods: Delphi study in three rounds. The selection of participants was carried out sepa - rately for in-house versus outsourced occupational health services. The first round included two open-ended questions: What difficulties do you encounter when performing your duties in your occupational health service? And, what are your needs in terms of being able to per - form your duties in your occupational health service? In the second and third rounds, partic - ipants ranked the categories identified in the first round according to their importance and relevance. We calculated an inter-rater agreement index (ICC) and an "index of concern (IP)".

Results: Among in-house occupational health services, the most highly ranked difficulties were case management of workers with limitations and the low quality of medical sur - veillance systems. Among outsourced occupational health services, the most notable dif - ficulties were the lack of communication with other organizations and the prioritization of economic and profitability criteria associated with the high work volume. For both types of services, there was a clear need to establish communication channels with other institu - tions or organizations such as primary care, mutual insurance companies, public medical evaluation units and public occupational health units.

Conclusions: The different type of occupational health services reflects important differ - ences in the types of difficulties encountered, but not in needs, where there are more points in common.