A pilot study of quality of life in German prehospital emergency care physicians.
BACKGROUND
Quality of life in patients represents an important area of assessment. However, attention to health professionals should be equally important. The literature on the quality of life (QOL) of emergency physicians is scarce. This pilot study investigated QOL in emergency physicians in Germany.


METHODS
We conducted a cross-sectional study from January to June in 2015. We approached the German Association of Emergency Medicine Physicians and two of the largest recruitment agencies for emergency physicians in Germany and invited their members to participate. We used the WHO Q-BREF to obtain QOL scores in four domains that included physical, mental, social, and environmental health.


RESULTS
The 478 German emergency physicians included in the study held board certifications in general medicine (n= 40; 8.4%), anesthesiology (n= 243; 50.8%), surgery (n= 63; 13.2%), internal medicine (n= 81; 17.0%), or others (n= 51; 10.7%). The women surveyed tended to report a better QOL but worse general health than the men. Regarding specific domains, women scored worse in physical health, particularly energy during everyday work (relative risk ratio [RRR]: 1.98 [1.21-3.24]). Both men and women scored worse in psychological health than general health, particularly young women. Women were also more likely to view their safety (RRR: 1.87 [1.07-3.28]) and living place (RRR: 2.51 [1.10-5.73]) as being poor than their male counterparts.


CONCLUSIONS
QOL in German prehospital emergency care physicians is satisfactory for the included participants; however, there were some negative effects in the psychological health domain. This is particularly obvious in young female emergency physicians.
Department of Dermatology, Venereology and Allergology, Dermatologic Surgery Unit, Ruhr University Bochum, 44791 Bochum, Germany; Department of Plastic Surgery, St. Josef Hospital, Catholic Clinics of the Ruhr Peninsula, 45257 Essen, Germany.
Michael
M
Sand
Department of Dermatology, Venereology and Allergology, Dermatologic Surgery Unit, Ruhr University Bochum, 44791 Bochum, Germany.
Schapoor
S
Hessam
Department of Dermatology, Venereology and Allergology, Dermatologic Surgery Unit, Ruhr University Bochum, 44791 Bochum, Germany.
Falk G
FG
Bechara
University of Michigan Kellogg Eye Center, Ann Arbor, MI 48105, USA.
Daniel
D
Sand
Department of General and Biological Psychology, University of Wuppertal, 42119 Wuppertal, Germany.
Christian
C
Vorstius
Department of Plastic Surgery, St. Josef Hospital, Catholic Clinics of the Ruhr Peninsula, 45257 Essen, Germany.
Michael
M
Bromba
Department of Dermatology, Venereology and Allergology, Dermatologic Surgery Unit, Ruhr University Bochum, 44791 Bochum, Germany.
Eggert
E
Stockfleth
Department of Healthcare, Faculty of Health and Life Sciences, Northumbria University, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, NE7 7XA, UK; Owens Institute for Behavioral Research, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602, USA.
Ivy
I
Shiue
Clinician; emergency care; mental health; quality of life