Junior doctors receiving supervisor and peer support are more work-engaged professionals who express their voice for quality improvement

Abstract

Purpose

In daily practice, junior doctors can contribute to quality improvement by providing innovative suggestions for change, referred to as voice behavior. Junior doctors are more likely to engage in voice behavior when they receive sufficient support from supervisors and peers. Such support has also been associated with less burnout and more work engagement. However, whether less burned-out and more work-engaged junior doctors demonstrate more voice behaviors in the face of sufficient supervisor and peer support is unclear. Therefore, we studied whether and how associations of supervisor and peer support with junior doctors’ voice behaviors are mediated by burnout and work engagement.

Materials & methods

Participants were 301 junior doctors that completed a web-based survey including validated questionnaires on supervisor and peer support, burnout, work engagement, and voice behavior.

Results

Supervisor and peer support were associated with lower levels of burnout and higher levels of work engagement. Work engagement, but not burnout, mediated the associations of supervisor and peer support with voice behaviors.

Conclusions

Junior doctors who received more supervisor or peer support were more work-engaged and reported more voice behaviors. Thus, supervisor and peer support should be cultivated to facilitate junior doctors’ roles as work-engaged professionals in quality improvement.

Keywords:

• Voice behaviors
• supervisor support
• peer support
• burnout
• work engagement

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank all junior doctors that participated in the study as well as the Young Doctor for their collaboration in this study. Furthermore, the authors are thankful for Sardes who provided an online platform for the study questionnaire.

Disclosure statement

The authors report there are no conflict of interest.

The web-based platform for the survey was provided by Sardes with financial support of the organization All is health. These organizations had no role in design of the study, analyses of the data and interpretation of the findings.

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.

Notes on contributors

Renée A. Scheepers

Renée Scheepers, PhD, is an Assistant Professor at the department of Socio-Medical Sciences, Erasmus School of Health Policy and Management, Erasmus University of Rotterdam, The Netherlands.

Aline J. Boxem

Aline Boxem, MD, is a PhD Candidate at the department of Pediatrics and the Generation R Study Group (Na-29), Erasmus Medical Center, University Medical Center, Rotterdam, the Netherlands.

Meike M. J. Blezer

Meike Blezer, MD, is a resident at the department of General Practice, Intellectual Disability Medicine of the Erasmus Medical Center, Rotterdam, the Netherlands.