SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH AND ESSAYS, cilt.4, sa.12, ss.1547-1552, 2009 (SCI-Expanded)
The aim of this study was to assess the HRQL of health professionals in primary healthcare centers in central county of Sivas, in Turkey. This study was conducted as a cross-sectional study and 248 employees working in 19 healhcare centers were taken into the sample. Two instruments were used in this study. The first instrument included questions regarding the demographic characteristics and working conditions of the health workers. The second instrument was a standardized Short Form Health Survey (SF-36) of HRQL questionnaire. In this study population, total SF-36 scales and its subscale scores were generally higher than one-half of total score of 100. While SF-36 scales were considerable changing according to sex and occupation, the effect of employment duration and age groups on these scores was not important. Males have generally more SF-36 scales than females. Health technicians and physicians have more the SF-36 scales compared to nurses and midwives. Physicians and health techicians reported better health status than nurses and midwifes; women reported poorer health status than men on all eight SF-36 dimensions. Moreover, the mean scores on all SF-36 dimensions reported by the participants on this study were lower than the U. S and many European national norms.