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Abstract
Objective
General practitioners (GPs) played a crucial role in limiting the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, and many GPs experienced they did not have the prerequisites to provide adequate care. However, GPs developed approaches that helped them to provide care to patients through various job crafting strategies. The aim of this study is to identify how job crafting strategies were deployed by GPs at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in Sweden and the significance of the strategies on their work situation.
Design
A qualitative design with semi-structured interviews. The data was analysed using qualitative content analysis with job crafting as the conceptual framework for the analysis process.
Setting
Primary healthcare in five healthcare regions in Sweden.
Subjects
Fourteen GPs participated in individual interviews.
Results
In their endeavours to organise and provide care, GPs shaped the task, relational and cognitive boundaries of their work. GPs felt proud about finding new ways of working when given room to manoeuvre. Intensified collaboration between healthcare professionals made GPs more confident in their clinical work. GPs expressed that they consequently felt stronger in their professional role through what they accomplished in the organisation of care.
Conclusions/Implications
The results suggest that the job crafting strategies GPs used were meaningful to them in clinical practice. Knowledge about how GPs’ job crafting strategies were deployed might be useful for healthcare organisations in preparing for future health crises. Taking advantage of GPs’ experiences and strategies is considered important for promoting sustainable working conditions for GPs in the future.
KEY POINTS
During the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in Sweden, general practitioners took immediate action to re-organise their day-to-day work tasks.
To manage professional uncertainty about how to provide the best possible care, general practitioners sought support from other healthcare peers.
The professional self-confidence of general practitioners increased through what they accomplished when facing a major health crisis.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank the general practitioners who participated in sharing their valuable experiences.
Authors contributions
All authors contributed to the study conception and design. The first and third authors collected the data. All authors were involved in data interpretation. The first draft of the manuscript was written by the first author, with input from all authors. All authors contributed to the critical review and all authors approved the final manuscript. The last author is the guarantor of this work and accountable for all aspects of the work.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Data availability statement
The datasets generated and analysed during the current study are not publicly available. Participants have consented to the publication of aggregated data, but not to open publication of data for individuals. Data is available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.