Medical doctors taking the lead: transforming workplaces towards sustainable employability

Abstract

Medical doctors’ compromised SE must be addressed to support their long-term functioning and prevent far-reaching consequences for both individuals and the healthcare system. This entails reducing burnout, and enhancing work engagement and job satisfaction. Because compromised SE stems from systemic characteristics of medical doctors’ work environments, organisational strategies are required. Interventions that strengthen PSC, reduce job demands, and enhance job resources - core components of the JD-R model extended with PSC - are therefore essential. Therefore, organisational-level workplace interventions, particularly those incorporating Participatory Action Research approaches, hold promise for improving SE by altering work environments. Evaluating such interventions requires not only assessing whether outcomes improve, but also examining chain of effects and process factors to determine what works, for whom, and under which circumstances.

Against this background, this thesis aimed:

AIM 1: To identify whether PSC and which job demands and job resources determine medical doctors’ SE and act as drivers of change within SE-focused organisational-level workplace interventions;

AIM 2: To evaluate the effectiveness of organisational-level workplace interventions in improving medical doctors’ SE; AIM 3: To examine the process factors that facilitate or hinder the effectiveness of SE-focused organisational-level workplace interventions among medical doctors.