[Public Service Motivation of the professionals of the primary care centers: What is more important the environment or the perceived supervisor support?].

OBJECTIVE

Explain the Public Service Motivation of health professionals based on (a) the social environment of their workplace and (b) the perceived supervisor support.

DESIGN

Observational, cross-sectional, quantitative, retrospective, and uncontrolled study.

SETTING

Forty primary care centers belonging to the Gran Canaria health area, primary care.

PARTICIPANTS

Six hundred and five health professionals from primary care centers. 46% doctors and 54% nurses. Non-probability convenience sampling with a response rate of 53.3%.

MAIN MEASUREMENTS

The dependent variable is the Public Service Motivation of health professionals. The independent variables are the social environment of the primary care centers and the perceived supervisor support. Data were analyzed using multilevel linear regression and multiple linear regression.

RESULTS

The following variables of the environment of the healthcare centers: income of the population, percentage of people older than 65 years, and the amount of population assigned to the centers, do not influence the Public Service Motivation of health professionals. On the contrary, the support they receive from their superiors does have a significant impact on both the compassion factor (β: 0.38; CI: 0.21-0.32) and the commitment to the public interest (β: 0.37; CI: 0.20-0.31).

CONCLUSIONS

The perceived supervisor support has a significant influence on the Public Service Motivation of health professionals. However, the social environment does not affect this type of motivation.