Workload and attitude toward profession among young Thai psychiatrists: a national survey.

OBJECTIVE

To survey workload and attitude toward profession of young Thai psychiatrists.

MATERIAL AND METHOD

The present study was a cross sectional descriptive survey The researcher team invented the questionnaire and posted it to 142 young Thai psychiatrists (age < or = 40 years old).

RESULTS

There were 82 participants. Response rate was 57.7%. The respondents were 30 males (36.6%), 52 females (63.4%), 66 general psychiatrists (80.5%), 16 child and adolescent psychiatrists (19.5%). Their mean of age was 31.4 years old. Those worked at hospitals under the Department of Mental Health (36.6%), the Office of Permanent Secretary (29.7%), universities (13.4%) and other institutions (12.2%). In office hours, the respondents had an average working hour 39.5 hours/week, while an average outpatient service working hour 15.6 hours/week. An average amount of outpatients was 89.9 patients/week. Each institution was significantly different in consultation liaison, teaching, administration, community psychiatry, and research. The percentages of young psychiatrists who agreed with the opinions "proud to be a psychiatrist", "working effectively as a psychiatrist" and "satisfied with psychiatric working system" were 98.9, 95.1 and 65.9 respectively. The average amount of outpatients (patients/week) affected job satisfaction.

CONCLUSION

The full-time working hour of young Thai psychiatrists was not different from other studies. However they had more psychiatric patients and spent more time doing outpatient service because of scarcity of psychiatrists in Thailand. Even though the number of psychiatric outpatients affected job satisfaction, most of them had positive professional attitude.