Quality of Life of Primary Healthcare Centres Physicians in BURAIDAH City 2020, a Study Using WHOQOL-BREF Questionnaire

Background: Life of doctors puts them at a high level of challenges and stress which can affect their quality of life. Therefore, the objective of the study was to evaluate the Quality Of Life of Primary health care providers by applying a brief version of the World Health Organization questionnaire for assessing Quality of Life (WHOQOL-BREF). To find the factors which affect the QOL of PHC physicians and know the aspects where it was affecting the health and performance of the Doctors.

Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted among 186 physicians working in primary health care centers in BURAIDAH city under Ministry Of Health. WHOQOL BREF validated questionnaire was used in both English and Arabic versions. Data was entered and cleaned in SPSS 21.0 version and necessary statistical tests were applied.

Results: In the present study, about 29.6% were females and 70.4% were males. About 66.6% of the study population were in 30-49 years age group and half (48.4%) of them were general practitioners. Mean QOL score in psychological domain (domain 2) was 63.66. In the other three domains of physical health, social relationships and environmental domain (domain 1, 3 & 4) was scoring more than 65. There was a statistically significant association observed between age and physical ,psychological health domains. This association was also seen between marital status and psychological, social domains.

Conclusions: Based on the results, on the whole, the majority of primary health care doctors had a moderate quality of life score to a high quality of life score ranging from 63.66-68.06. Still, there is a scope of improvement in domain 2 (psychological domain).