Maintaining the Health Status of Doctors is a Global Challenge, Workplace Health Research of Doctors has become an Urgent Problem to be solved

Editorial

World Health Organization stated that healthcare workers play a vital role in improving health service coverage and maximizing everyone’s right to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health in 2022 [1]. As the main component of the health service industry, the workplace health of doctors is particularly important for the construction of the country’s healthy workplaces. Globally, 63% of health workers report experiencing some form of violence in the workplace [2]. During the COVID-19 pandemic, 23% of frontline healthcare workers worldwide suffered from depression and anxiety, and 39% suffered from insomnia [2]. Previous studies have shown that among the 767 social occupations compared, 11 of the top 27 high-stress jobs are related to the medical profession, including obstetricians and gynecologists, surgeons, physicians, and stomatologists (ranked 5th, 6th, 15th, and 20th, respectively) [3].

According to a survey of 15,000 doctors, 42% of the interviewed doctors said they were overworked, and the proportion of overworked doctors in most departments was more than 40% [4]. According to the survey results of the White Paper on Occupational Conditions of Chinese Doctors [5], the survey of 146,200 doctors released by the Chinese Medical Association shows that the overall psychological exhaustion level of doctors is significantly higher than that of enterprise employees. A total of 51.3 percent of the respondents had a psychological exhaustion level above level 6 (severe) [5].

Since the outbreak of COVID-19, with the gradual increase of people’s demand for medical services, medical personnel are facing increasingly heavy workplace pressure. At the same time, due to the special nature of the medical industry, high-load workload, high-intensity work pressure, frequent night shift, frequent medical violence, and high job burnout, the medical industry practitioners are faced with increasingly severe health challenges, and the medical industry practitioners’ sudden death from overwork, suicide and other incidents are frequent [6, 7]. Medical professionals have a higher risk of suicide, 2.5 times that of the general population [7]. According to incomplete statistics, between 2007 and 2020, 207 cases of unnatural death doctors were publicly reported in China, 79% of whom died from overwork or sudden death [8]. Moreover, the data show that the overall incidence of unnatural death cases is on the rise [8].

The study showed that the sudden death doctors were mainly young and middle-aged, the average age was 36.30±8.41 years old, 24 hours shift or night shift and preparation level exam were the most common reasons; Overload work and long working hours are also important causes of death [6]. In addition, high stress, lack of physical exercise, lack of regular health check-ups, and incorrect stress reduction methods (such as excessive alcohol consumption, smoking, long-term consumption of energy drinks, etc.) will affect the health of doctors and may be related to death [9, 10].

The occurrence of sudden death is also closely related to economic and social factors. Young and middle-aged doctors are in a critical period of family and professional development, not only hoping to make breakthroughs in clinical services and academic research, but also facing pressure from patients and their families, as well as heavy family responsibilities, such as supporting parents, raising children, paying mortgages, which causes them to work harder. Young and middle-aged doctors are the future of the entire national medical system, and workplace health research of doctors has become an urgent problem to be solved.

On the other hand, the shortage of talents in China’s current medical layout is very serious [11]. According to the statistics of DXY (Dingxiangyuan), doctors between 25 and 35 years old are the main force of the turnover crowd, and the turnover rate of senior doctors between 36 and 45 years old (most of them are associate chief physician and chief physician) accounts for 17.8%, and this part is the scarcity of talents. At the same time, 23.8% of doctors no longer work as doctors after leaving their jobs [11].

The workplace health of doctors is a new concept, and there are few relevant studies in the world. As a public healthcare provider, the medical industry should be a model for the healthy workplace. It should provide guidelines and good practices that can be replicated by other industries, and there is still a lack of hospital-specific healthy workplace manuals worldwide. The author believes that the study on worker place healthy of doctors should focus on the leading indicators and effectiveness indicators (especially the leading indicators) of healthy workplace, prevention and control strategies. Using the method of quasi-experimental research and FMCDM multi-criteria decision-making, the leading indicators and effectiveness indicators of workplace health of doctors, and effective rectification measures were proposed. To clear which interventions can effectively improve the workplace health of doctors through quasi- experimental research.