FAMILY PHYSICIANS PERCEPTIONS WITH THE WORK ENVIRONMENT IN LITHUANIA

Introduction: Physicians satisfaction with the working environment is an important aspect associated with the quality, efficiency of work, stress and burnout. Object: to analyze Lithuanian’s family physicians perceptions of their working environment and to compare their attitudes according Primary Health Care Setting (PHCS) type: public or private. Method. The survey was performed in Kaunas region as a part of the “TABESORI” project SIN-12015. The permission of Bioetical committee was received. There were 33 PHCS randomly included in the survey (based on the size and type). 164 family physicians participated in the survey and answered the anonymous questionnaire “Areas of Worklife Survey” (the permission was received by the authors), which was created to assess employees' perceptions of work setting qualities described by six areas of the work environment: workload, control, reward, community, fairness and values. Respondents choosed one of the 5 answers and the results were scored, the mean ranks were calculated and compared (Mann Whitney U). Results: 92,1% of the respondents were women, aged 50 years old in average; 34.7 % were working in private and in 57.3 %the public PHCS – this represents data in the region. The mean ranks were compared; physicians in private PHCS vs. from public ones statistically significantly had less workload (13.5 vs. 12,1);administrative control (14,3 vs. 12,3); were evaluated better (14,2 vs.12,8); had better relations (17,7 vs. 15,9); evaluated administrative better (19,4 vs. 16,6) and their values were concordant with the administrative values (14,6 vs. 13.6). Conclusion: physicians working in the private PHCS evaluated their working environment better vs.physicians from public PHCS.