Professional satisfaction in general practice: does it vary by size of community?

• Published in: Medical journal of Australia Vol. 193; no. 2; pp. 94 - 98
• Main Authors: McGrail, Matthew R, Humphreys, John S, Scott, Anthony, Joyce, Catherine M, Kalb, Guyonne
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Sydney Australasian Medical Publishing Company 19-07-2010
• Subjects: Adult; Biological and medical sciences; Family Practice; Female; General aspects; General medicine; Humans; Job Satisfaction; Logistic Models; Male; Medical practitioners; Medical sciences; Middle Aged; Odds Ratio; Physicians, Family - psychology; Population; Rural conditions; Rural Health Services; Working conditions; General practice; Professional practice; Size; Community; Satisfaction
• ISSN: 0025-729X; 1326-5377
• DOI: 10.5694/j.1326-5377.2010.tb03812.x

Objective: To investigate whether the level of professional satisfaction of Australian general practitioners varies according to community size and location.
Design, setting and participants: Cross‐sectional, population‐level national survey using results for a cohort of 3906 GPs (36% were “rural” participants) from the first wave of a longitudinal study of the Australian medical workforce, conducted between June and November 2008. Geographical differences in levels of professional satisfaction were examined using five community size categories: metropolitan, ≥ 1 million residents; regional centre, 50 000–999 999; medium–large rural, 10 000–49 999; small rural, 2500–9999; and very small rural, < 2500.
Main outcome measures: Level of professional satisfaction expressed by GPs working in different sized communities with respect to various job aspects.
Results: Professional satisfaction of GPs did not differ by community size for most aspects of the job. Overall satisfaction was high, at about 85% across all community sizes. Satisfaction with remuneration was slightly higher in smaller rural towns, even though the hours worked there were less predictable. Professional satisfaction with freedom of choosing work method, variety of work, working conditions, opportunities to use abilities, amount of responsibility, and colleagues was very high across all community sizes, while difficulties with arranging locums and the stress of running the practice were commonly reported by GPs in all community sizes.
Conclusions: GPs working in different sized communities in Australia express similar levels of satisfaction with most professional aspects of their work.