Female roles and confl icts in health care professions

Abstract

The burdens of caring and curing professions are increased in the female workforce by duties becoming a child and serving a family as well. Aim: the objective of our research was to study and compare future and present family and career plans of students and active professionals (nurses and female doctors), related to their physical and mental health and conflicts. Methods: our cross-section research was carried out among female nursing college students (N = 226), female medical students (N = 117), and among professional nurses and female doctors in hospitals (N = 409). Results: students consider parallel their future family and workplace roles. The number of children planned is the same as in general population, but female medical students would like to have more children than nursing students. Professional nurses and female doctors estimate high both the family and workplace roles. Role conflicts are interrelating with their career and life satisfaction, health condition, and the prevalence of psychosomatic symptoms. Their roles as a social model in health promotion are rather questionable, for their insufficient health and risk behaviors. Conclusions: we can state that there is a considerable tension and contradiction in planned and actual roles of future and present female workforce of Hungary's health care system. In many cases they are unable to fulfill requirements based on their social engagement. Relevant handicaps of nursing college students and female professional nurses are more prevalent, therefore we propose further analytic and comparative research in the future.