Survey on the self-rated health of doctors and nurses at China′s 144 tertiary public hospitals

Abstract

Objective To establish comprehensive understanding of the self-rated health of the Chinese doctors and nurses and probe into their influencing factors. Methods Data were drawn from a hospital performance survey, which was conducted by the Peking Union School of Public Health from March 18th to April 9th, 2019, among the 144 tertiary public hospitals in 31 provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities. The survey included a cell-phone based questionnaire filled out by the sampled doctors and nurses, in which they were asked to rate their health using a 5-level Likert scale(from " very poor" to " very good" ). Mann-Whitney U test was used to analyze the differences in self-rated health between doctors and nurses. Chi-square test and two-class multivariate logistic regression were performed to analyze factors affecting self-rated health of the providers. Results Among the 144 sample hospitals, the proportion of doctors, who rated their health as " healthy" , was 20.30%(4 979/24 529), that of nurses was 28.92%(8 361/28 910). It was worse than that in some developed countries and lower than the general population in China. Multi-variate analysis showed that adequate sleeping time, satisfaction with the work and with the doctor-patient relationship, were positively associated with the level of self-rated health of the sampled doctors and nurses(P<0.05). It was also found that the longer the average weekly working time, the higher the recognition of " the work load is too heavy" , the lower the proportion of doctors and nurses who rated their health as " healthy" (P<0.05). Conclusions Sleep time, job satisfaction, workload and doctor-patient relationship are important factors affecting self-rated health of the Chinese doctors and nurses. Key words: Health status; Self-related; Medical staff; Influencing factors; Third party evaluation