Department of Economics, Bogazici University, Istanbul, Turkey.
Department of Economics, Ozyegin University, Istanbul, Turkey.
East Mediterr Health J. 2022 Jun 29;28(6):418-424. doi: 10.26719/emhj.22.037.
Women often have a preference for female obstetrics and gynaecology specialists (ob/gyns). Following the policy allowing physician selection by patients in Turkey, distribution of ob/gyns by gender across provinces has been an important indicator of access to healthcare.
To analyse ob/gyns distribution by gender across provinces in Turkey, with emphasis on the relationship with conservativeness of the province and resulting physician workload.
We measured the number of male and female ob/gyns by province in 2016 and the number of outpatient visits and deliveries performed by male and female ob/gyns in 2015. Pearson and Spearman correlation of the female ratio with votes for conservative parties was used to assess the distribution of ob/gyns. We then analysed the correlation with resulting workload of female ob/gyns and ran linear regressions of these variables controlling the number of ob/gyns in a province.
More conservative provinces, measured by the vote share for conservative political parties, have a higher ratio of female ob/gyns. Linear regression showed that a 1 percentage point (pp) increase in the vote share corresponded to a 0.69 pp increase in female ratio. For workload, a 1 pp higher female ratio resulted in a decrease in workload, measured as outpatient visits per female ob/gyn divided by that per male ob/gyn, by 0.014.
Conservative provinces have more female ob/gyns, but other provinces compensate for that with higher female ob/gyn workload. High workload may have adverse health effects and result in lower quality of care.
女性通常更倾向于选择女性妇产科专家（ob/gyns）。在土耳其允许患者选择医生的政策下，各省妇产科医生的性别分布成为获得医疗保健的一个重要指标。
分析土耳其各省妇产科医生的性别分布情况，重点关注该分布与该省的保守程度以及由此产生的医生工作量之间的关系。
我们以 2016 年各省的男性和女性妇产科医生人数以及 2015 年男性和女性妇产科医生的门诊就诊人数和分娩人数为指标进行测量。采用 Pearson 和 Spearman 相关分析来评估妇产科医生的性别分布与支持保守党派的选票之间的关系。然后，我们分析了与女性妇产科医生工作量的相关性，并对这些变量进行了线性回归分析，控制了一个省的妇产科医生人数。
以支持保守党派的选票份额来衡量，较为保守的省份拥有更高比例的女性妇产科医生。线性回归显示，选票份额增加 1 个百分点，女性比例增加 0.69 个百分点。就工作量而言，女性比例每增加 1 个百分点，女性妇产科医生的门诊就诊量与男性妇产科医生的门诊就诊量之比就会减少 0.014。
保守省份拥有更多的女性妇产科医生，但其他省份则通过提高女性妇产科医生的工作量来弥补这一不足。高工作量可能会对健康产生不利影响，并导致护理质量下降。
