Work Conditions and Well-being in Hospital Physicians and Quality of Care: Insights from Cohort and Intervention studies in Germany
Dr Matthias Weigl
28 October 2014
9:30-11:30, F009, Wolfson Research Institute, Wolfson Building, Queen’s Campus.
The quality of health care is determined also by the quality of physicians’ and nurses’ work environment and their well-being. Our research investigates to what extent psychosocial characteristics of the work environment are responsible for the well-being of healthcare professionals. Furthermore we are interested in interventions that encompass the active participation of physicians to improve their work conditions.
The presentation will feature results from a longitudinal investigation in German junior physicians that revealed the effects of poor working conditions on impaired well-being over time, i.e., depressive state in junior physicians. Additionally two controlled studies are discussed that evaluated the effects of an intervention to improve physicians’ work conditions in regard to perceived quality of care reported through patients’ evaluations.
BIOGRAPHY: Dr. Matthias Weigl (Diploma and Doctorate in Psychology) is a researcher in industrial and organizational psychology at the Institute and Outpatient Clinic for Occupational, Social, and Environmental Medicine of LMU University Munich, Germany. He is Co-Head of the working group “Applied Medicine and Psychology at Work (AMPA)”. His research interests are in the areas of work design, employee wellbeing, performance, and quality in health care organizations. His past research projects investigated physicians work life in the hospital and potential consequences for physician well-being and care quality. He teaches at Munich University as well as at Innsbruck University, Austria.