High demand, low control, and impaired general health: working conditions in a sample of Swedish general practitioners

This cross-sectional survey of 1,004 Swedish general practitioners (GPs) aged 32-64 years analyses the extent to which low control, high work demand, and other work-related conditions are associated with self-rated impaired general health and impaired quality of life among Swedish GPs. The first part of the questionnaire contained "SF-36 Health Survey", from which we chose five psychosocial multi-item scales as dependent variables. The second part of the questionnaire had questions about working conditions from "The Swedish Survey of Living Conditions". Unconditional logistic regression was used. Female and male GPs with high job strain, i.e. low control and high work demand, exhibited a more than three-fold increased risk of impaired general health compared with those with medium job strain. Low job strain among male GPs was associated with a low risk of impaired health. The finding of significant associations between psychosocial working conditions and impaired general health and impaired, quality of life in GPs in 1996 highlights the need to improve working conditions in Swedish primary healthcare, for example, by reducing number of inhabitants per full-time GP to 1,500.