What physicians want to learn about sickness certification: analyses of questionnaire data from 4019 physicians

BMC Public Health

Table 5 Demographic and work-related items associated with expressed need for skills and knowledge.

	Knowledge-index¹				Skills-index²
	n	group mean/reference group mean	difference from reference group mean	p	n	group mean/reference group mean	difference from reference group mean	p
All	3900	65.6			3905	59.4
Sex (ref: male)	1961	62.8			1966	57.5
Female	1939		+5.5	<0.001	1939		+3.7	<0.001
Educational level (ref: specialist)	2850	63.6			2856	56.8
Medical degree	187		+10.0	<0.001	186		+14.3	<0.001
Registered physician	121		+7.1	<0.001	121		+9.1	<0.001
In resident training	717		+6.9	<0.001	717		+8.5	<0.001
Main workplace
Psychiatry	348	72.6			347	63.5
Primary health care centre	952	71.4			952	71.1
Oncology	103	67.5			102	56.0
Addiction medicine	38	66.9			38	58.2
Internal medicine	359	66.2			359	59.7
Orthopaedics	183	65.1			184	55.9
Rehabilitation care³	58	62.5			58	56.6
Other⁴	1152	62.0			1158	53.2
Gynaecology/Obstetrics	278	61.7			278	54.2
Occupational health services	122	59.8			122	58.5
Surgery	290	57.2			290	49.6
Support from management (ref: yes)	982	64.8			982	58.6
No	2761		+1.6	0.018	2763		+1.7	0.013
Workplace policy (ref: yes)	564	57.9			564	51.6
No	3256		+9.2	<0.001	3259		+9.4	<0.001
Frequency of sickness certification cases (ref: low frequency)	1925	63.3			1929	56.7
High frequency	1975		+4.5	<0.001	1976		+5.3	<0.001
Frequency of problems in handling sickness certification (ref: low frequency)	3603	65.1			3607	58.6
High frequency	251		+7.2	<0.001	252		+12.0	<0.001
Regular contacts with SIO ⁵ (ref: yes)	3024	68.5			3024	67.3
No	841		-3.8	<0.001	844		-10.0	<0.001

¹Sickness insurance rules, other forms of compensation and options and responsibilities of the physician, the SIO, the employer, and the employment office
²Judging work capacity, assess work demands, assess optimum length and degree of certification, handling conflicts, designing plans of action
³Including physicians in social insurance office and insurance company
⁴All other types of workplaces
⁵Social Insurance Office
One-way ANOVA. Mean index value, in percent of maximum.

ISSN: 1471-2458