title: What are the predictors of self-assessed health in Lithuanian health professionals?
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Scientific evidence indicates that patient safety and access to health care is linked to the well-being of health professionals. The self-assessed health status has been widely used as a health measure in different surveys. The aim of this study was to examine and determine the factors related to the self-assessed health status of health professionals.
  
  
  METHODS
  The cross-sectional questionnaire surveys of nurses and physicians were carried out in randomly selected hospitals. A total of 1025 health professionals (739 nurses and 286 physicians) from 3 hospitals of different size located in 1 geographical region of Lithuania participated in the survey. The response rate among the nurses and the physicians was 89.2% and 52.5%, respectively. The overall response rate was 74.7%. The data on self-assessed health, demographic factors, anthropometric data, blood pressure, cholesterol level in blood, personal history of diseases, smoking, and alcohol consumption were gathered with the help of the questionnaire.
  
  
  RESULTS
  About two-thirds (64.1%) of the health professionals reported good or quite good health, and only 1.5% of the respondents reported quite poor or poor health. Multivariate logistic regression analysis revealed that the SAH status of health professionals was dependent on age (odds ratio [OR], 1.03; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.02-1.05 [Model 1]; OR, 1.04; 95% CI, 1.02-1.06 [Model 2]), diseases (OR, 7.32; 95%, 5.18-10.35), heart diseases (OR, 12.09; 95% CI, 2.9-50.35), hypertension (OR, 2.53; 95% CI, 1.55-4.14), cancer (OR, 6.19; 95% CI, 1.27-30.13), gastrointestinal (OR, 3.54; 95% CI, 1.59-7.86) and musculoskeletal diseases (OR, 3.21; 95% CI, 1.71-6.02), smoking (OR, 2.1; 95% CI, 1.28-3.45 [Model 1]; OR, 2.00; 95% CI, 1.26-3.16 [Model 2]), and occupation (OR, 1.47; 95% CI, 1.04-2.07 [ Model 1]; OR, 1.54; 95% CI, 1.11-2.16 [Model 2]).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Diseases are the main predictors of self-assessed health in health professionals. Advancing age and smoking also contribute to poorer self-assessed health.
authors: Department of Preventive Medicine, Faculty of Public Health, Medical Academy, Lithuanian University of Health Sciences, Eivenių 4, 50161 Kaunas, Lithuania. irena.miseviciene@lsmuni.lt
authors: Irena
authors: I
authors: Misevičienė
authors: Loreta
authors: L
authors: Strumylaitė
authors: Birutė
authors: B
authors: Pajarskienė
authors: Kristina
authors: K
authors: Zalnieraitienė
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D006297:Health Services Accessibility; D006304:Health Status; D006801:Humans; D008097:Lithuania; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009726:Nurses; D010820:Physicians; D012647:Self-Assessment; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires