Determinants of village doctors’ job satisfaction under China’s health sector reform: a cross-sectional mixed methods study
Li, Tongtong;
Lei, Trudy;
Sun, Fiona;
Xie, Zheng;
(2017)
Determinants of village doctors’ job satisfaction under China’s health sector reform: a cross-sectional mixed methods study.
International Journal for Equity in Health, 16 (1).
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12939-017-0560-8
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Background: To strengthen rural health workforce, the Chinese government has launched a series of policies to
promote the job satisfaction of village doctors since the health sector reform. The purpose of this mixed-method
study is to describe village doctors’ job satisfaction under the context of health sector reform and investigate the
associated factors.
Methods: Data was obtained from a survey of village doctors across three Chinese provinces in 2014. Using a
multistage sampling process, quantitative data was collected from village doctors through the self-administered
questionnaire and analyzed by multilevel logistic regression models. Qualitative data was collected through
face-to-face semi-structured interviews on both village doctors and health managers. Theoretical coding was
then conducted to analyze qualitative data.
Results: Among the 1221 respondents, 48.6% felt satisfied with their job. Older village doctors with less of a workload
and under high-level integrated management were more likely to feel satisfied with their job. Village doctors who earned
the top level of monthly income felt more satisfied, while on the county level, those who lived in counties
with the highest GDP felt less satisfied. However, enrollment in a pension plan showed no significant difference in
regards to village doctors’ job satisfaction.
Among 34 participants of qualitative interviews, most believed that age, income, and integrated management had a
positive influence on the job satisfaction, while pension plan and basic public health care policies exhibited negative
effects. Also, the increasing in availability of healthcare and health resources along with local economic development
had negative effects on village doctors’ job satisfaction.
Conclusion: Village doctors’ job satisfaction was quite low in regards to several determinants including age, income,
workload, enrollment in a pension plan, integrated management, and county economic and medical
availability development.