The health related quality of life of the employees in the Greek hospitals: assessing how healthy are the health workers

BACKGROUND The main aim of the study was to assess the health status and health related quality of life of the personnel of the Hellenic Network of Health Promotion Hospitals. The instrument used was SF-36. An additional aim was to contribute to the validation of the SF-36. METHODS The study instrument was administered to 347 randomly selected employees from seven hospitals within major Athens area. Completed questionnaire were obtained by 292 employees. The statistical significance of the observed differences was tested with parametric (t-test and ANOVA) and non-parametric tests (Mann-Whitney and Kruskall-Wallis). Also, since the Greek national norms have not been published yet, the mean scores on all eight SF-36 dimensions of this study were compared with the U.S and several European national norms just to assess the extent to what there are significant differences between a Greek healthy population and the general populations of several other countries. RESULTS Medical doctors and technical personnel (mostly engineers) reported better health status than nurses and administrative and auxiliary personnel; women reported poorer health status than men on all eight SF-36 dimensions; younger employees reported poorer health status than their older counterpartners. Moreover the mean scores on all SF-36 dimensions reported by the participants on this study were considerably lower than the U.S and many European national norms. Also the study results constitute an indication of the SF-36 construct validity. CONCLUSION The findings of this study show that there are major and intense health inequalities among the employees in Greek hospitals.