Factors that affect the changes in the satisfaction of Japanese physical therapists with their profession over the years.
Munetsugu Kota, Hiroyuki Kudo, Makoto Takahashi
PMID 33814705WHAT IT FOUND
New Japanese physical therapists reported lower professional satisfaction in 2019 than in 2018.
The share who agreed or strongly agreed fell from 76.1% to 65.1%. Wanting to work without delay and feeling the job is worthwhile were most consistently linked with satisfaction.
Key findings
01Professional satisfaction among new physical therapists changed significantly over the three survey years, with agreement at 76.1% in 2018 and 65.1% in 2019.
02Significant year-to-year differences were found for wanting to work without delay, salary satisfaction, and perceived ease of taking vacation.
03Feeling the job is worthwhile was selected as associated with satisfaction in all three years; in 2019, wanting to work without delay and imagining future growth were also selected.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTs
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What it does not show
The sample was limited to new physical therapists attending orientation sessions in Hiroshima Prefecture, so results may not apply to therapists in other regions, ages, specialties or career stages. The study covered only three years, so it cannot show a long-term trend. It used a questionnaire created for this study, and satisfaction was self-reported. The researchers could not identify whether participants had experienced the new clinical clerkship or the older assigned-patient internship format. The analysis compared different groups of new therapists each year, so it cannot prove that any factor caused satisfaction to change. Of 585 participants, 564 usable responses were analysed after missing values were removed.
Declared interests
The authors declared no conflicts of interest associated with this manuscript.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that changing clinical internship format caused the lower satisfaction in 2019. The study did not record which internship format participants experienced, and it only compared survey groups across years.