The Private Mental Health Alliance (PMHA) Quality Improvement Project (QIP), with the support of the Australian Medical Association (AMA) and the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists (RANZCP) is conducting an online Survey of Psychiatrists’ Workload (WLS) in the following time frame:
Officially Starting: Thursday March 1st 2012
Finishing: Saturday March 31st 2012
If you are a psychiatrist working any proportion of your time in private practice in Australia, we warmly invite you to consider being part of this nation-wide de-identified survey. Your knowledge and opinions are valued highly. If you choose to participate, please note that the Findings will be available here late in 2012.
In the last week of February an email will be sent to all psychiatrists with a link to the survey. If you do not receive that email and would like to participate in the survey please use the Contact Us link to request the link to the survey from the Director of the PMHA.
Why a Psychiatrists Workload Study?
We need comprehensive information about the workload of psychiatrists, about the patients they treat and the issues raised in the process. Psychiatrists are in short supply in Australia (Fletcher and Schofield, 2007), and steadily aging as a professional group. In 1999, one quarter of Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists (RANZCP) members were aged 55 years and over (Draper, Winfield and Luscombe, 1999). This proportion had increased to almost 40% by 2003 (AIHW, 2005). As older psychiatrists retire the shortage of psychiatrists will become more acute (Fletcher and Schofield, 2007). Concomitantly as the Australian population increases, so will the approximately one in five Australians who experience mental illness rise as a total number of Australians requiring mental health services (AMWAC, 1999, in Fletcher and Schofield, 2007).
The different distribution of psychiatrists between metropolitan and rural areas remains an ongoing concern. People living in rural and remote areas have less than half as much access to psychiatrists as metropolitan Australians. There is difficulty in recruiting psychiatrists to public practice and an increasing reliance on overseas graduates in rural areas (MHWAG, 2008).
March 2012 is an opportune time to conduct a survey of Australian psychiatrists’ workload. Apart from surveys run by Australian Institute of Health and Welfare and the Private Practitioners’ Network of the RANZCP, a comprehensive psychiatrists’ Workload Survey exploring the nature of patient characteristics in addition to practice characteristics has not been conducted for some time in Australia.
The main topics addressed in the survey will be the following:
- Psychiatrist (participant) demographics
- Practice characteristics
- Patient demographics
- Patient characteristics: clinical; lifestyle; and estimates of average numbers of patients seen over a defined time‐frame
- Other agencies and professionals involved in patient care
- Perception of changes in patient population over time
Current Status
The development of the workload study (WLS) was completed after the QIP Steering Committee signed off on the methodology in October 2012. The WLS is as brief and straightforward as possible, with the number of questions kept to a minimum. The Steering Committee also agreed to a proposal emanating from our consultations to access existing psychiatrist data from the Medical Workforce in Australia: Balancing Employment and Lifestyle (MABEL) Study, to be used as a cohort for comparison with some WLS characteristics.
WLS Pilot Study, 2011
The WLS Pilot Study took place in November 2011. The psychiatrists on the PMHA’s Private Practice Research Network and the Australian Medical Association (AMA) Psychiatrists’ Group participated. The Pilot Survey responses were then exclusively used to further shape the WLS survey proper.
References
Australian Institute of Health and Welfare: Mental health services in Australia, 2003-04. Canberra, AIHW (Mental Health Series no. 8); 2005.
Australian Medical Workforce Advisory Committee: The specialist psychiatry workforce in Australia: supply, requirements and projections 1999-2010. (1999) Sydney, AMWAC; 1999.
Draper B, Winfield S and Luscombe G (1999), The Senior Psychiatrist Survey 1: age and psychiatric practice ANZJ Psychiatry 1999: 33: 701‐708.
Fletcher S and Schofield D (2007), ‘The impact of generational change and retirement on psychiatry to 2025’ Biomed Central Health Services Research, Vol. 7: 141.