HealthDay News – According to a study published online on JAMA Network Open on June 23, the working hours and full-time status of doctors fell significantly during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Xiaochu Hu, Ph.D., and Michael J. Dill, both of the Association of American Medical Colleges in Washington, DC, analyzed the monthly baseline data from the Current Population Survey from January 2019 to December 2020 to identify changes in US doctors’ working hours to investigate and activities before and after the COVID-19 pandemic. The analysis included 8,853 observations from 2,563 unique doctors.
The researchers found that the average weekly working time began to decline in March 2020 (49.2 hours per week) and reached its lowest level (47.5 hours per week) in May 2020, stabilizing in the summer and another low in November reached. In December 2020, the average weekly working time was 47.8, a decrease of 6 percent compared to January 2019. The full-time employment of doctors fell from 84.17 percent before COVID-19 to 80.65 percent during the pandemic. The percentage of doctors reporting layoffs, while rare, has increased from 0.05 percent to 0.45 percent during COVID-19. Among female doctors, the proportion of full-time parents of children of preschool age fell from 17.98 to 14.10 percent, but this change was not observed among male doctors.
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“This study found that doctor hours have decreased significantly since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in the US, accelerating an existing, gradual decline,” the authors write. “These observed changes may reflect the decline in health care use and the increased flexibility brought about by COVID-19-related regulations.”
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Subjects:
COVID19 practice management for general infectious diseases
