Demographics, practice patterns, job satisfaction, and career plans of endocrinologists in Poland

INTRODUCTION

In view of dynamic ageing of the Polish population, there will be increasing demand for health services, including endocrinology services. The demand for endocrinology services is already high, with long waiting times for consultations as one of its indicators. Human resources - in this case doctors specialised in endocrinology - are key in meeting those needs. In this regard, it is worth defining the professional situation of endocrinologists in Poland. The aim of the study was to gain knowledge about the professional status of endocrinologists in Poland, i.e. their social and demographic characteristics, general job characteristics and characteristics of their work with a patient, job satisfaction, income, and career plans.

MATERIAL AND METHODS

The material consisted of data from 197 surveys from physicians specialising in endocrinology. Analysis of the material was quantitative and was performed using STATISTICA 13.1 software (STATSOFT, Tulsa, OK, United States).

RESULTS

A doctor with a specialisation in endocrinology in Poland is usually a woman below the age of 50 years living in a large city. In addition to the specialisation in endocrinology, they usually have a specialisation in internal medicine and they combine work in public health care with work in private care, which ensures high financial status. In an average working week of 45 hours, they admit an average of 100 patients, spending about one-fifth of their time on administrative activities. Despite the heavy workload limiting their work-life balance and average employment conditions, they report relatively high job satisfaction. Although they aim to work until the age of 70 years, they plan to reduce the amount of time spent at work.

CONCLUSIONS

Further constant monitoring of job characteristics and job satisfaction of endocrinologists is needed to improve human resources planning and management.

The Prevalence of Tobacco, Heated Tobacco, and E-Cigarette Use in Poland: A 2022 Web-Based Cross-Sectional Survey

Monitoring tobacco use on a regular schedule is a basic tool of tobacco control policy. This study aimed (1) to assess the current prevalence and patterns of tobacco and e-cigarette use, as well as (2) to identify socioeconomic factors associated with smoking behavior among adults in Poland. This cross-sectional study was carried out in March 2022 on a nationwide, representative sample of 1090 adults in Poland. The computer-assisted web interview (CAWI) technique was used. Daily tobacco smoking was declared by 28.8% of respondents (27.1% of females and 30.8% of males; p = 0.2) and 4.2% were occasional smokers (4.2% of females and 4.3% of males; p = 0.8). Most of the current smokers (62.1%) smoked regular cigarettes and 25.2% smoked hand-rolled cigarettes. The prevalence of daily e-cigarette use was 4.8% (4.0% among females and 5.6% among males; p = 0.2). Daily heated tobacco use was declared by 4.0% of respondents (5.1% of females and 2.9% of males; p = 0.07). Age, having children, and educational level were significantly associated with current daily tobacco smoking. This study revealed a high prevalence of tobacco and e-cigarette use among adults in Poland. The presented data underscore the importance of further improvements in adopting a comprehensive tobacco control strategy in Poland.

The contribution of global aviation to anthropogenic climate forcing for 2000 to 2018

Global aviation operations contribute to anthropogenic climate change via a complex set of processes that lead to a net surface warming. Of importance are aviation emissions of carbon dioxide (CO₂), nitrogen oxides (NO_x), water vapor, soot and sulfate aerosols, and increased cloudiness due to contrail formation. Aviation grew strongly over the past decades (1960-2018) in terms of activity, with revenue passenger kilometers increasing from 109 to 8269 billion km yr^-1, and in terms of climate change impacts, with CO₂ emissions increasing by a factor of 6.8 to 1034 Tg CO₂ yr^-1. Over the period 2013-2018, the growth rates in both terms show a marked increase. Here, we present a new comprehensive and quantitative approach for evaluating aviation climate forcing terms. Both radiative forcing (RF) and effective radiative forcing (ERF) terms and their sums are calculated for the years 2000-2018. Contrail cirrus, consisting of linear contrails and the cirrus cloudiness arising from them, yields the largest positive net (warming) ERF term followed by CO₂ and NO_x emissions. The formation and emission of sulfate aerosol yields a negative (cooling) term. The mean contrail cirrus ERF/RF ratio of 0.42 indicates that contrail cirrus is less effective in surface warming than other terms. For 2018 the net aviation ERF is +100.9 milliwatts (mW) m^-2 (5-95% likelihood range of (55, 145)) with major contributions from contrail cirrus (57.4 mW m^-2), CO₂ (34.3 mW m^-2), and NO_x (17.5 mW m^-2). Non-CO₂ terms sum to yield a net positive (warming) ERF that accounts for more than half (66%) of the aviation net ERF in 2018. Using normalization to aviation fuel use, the contribution of global aviation in 2011 was calculated to be 3.5 (4.0, 3.4) % of the net anthropogenic ERF of 2290 (1130, 3330) mW m^-2. Uncertainty distributions (5%, 95%) show that non-CO₂ forcing terms contribute about 8 times more than CO₂ to the uncertainty in the aviation net ERF in 2018. The best estimates of the ERFs from aviation aerosol-cloud interactions for soot and sulfate remain undetermined. CO₂-warming-equivalent emissions based on global warming potentials (GWP* method) indicate that aviation emissions are currently warming the climate at approximately three times the rate of that associated with aviation CO₂ emissions alone. CO₂ and NO_x aviation emissions and cloud effects remain a continued focus of anthropogenic climate change research and policy discussions.

Evaluation of patients' adherence to statins in Poland

INTRODUCTION

High efficacy of statin therapy in primary and secondary prevention of coronary heart disease (CHD) has been confirmed in numerous clinical trials. However, studies' results do not reflect patient benefits in everyday clinical practice. Observed discrepancies are the result of patients' failure to comply with medical recommendations regarding both non-pharmacological and pharmacological treatment. Non-compliance can lead to serious health and economic consequences.

OBJECTIVES

The purpose of the presented study was the retrospective analysis of compliance in patients treated with statins on the basis of Polish reimbursement data from the National Health Fund (NFZ).

METHODS

Medication Possession Ratio (MPR) was used for the compliance assessment; proportion of patients achieving the minimum level of compliance which ensure a satisfactory clinical response was also evaluated. Number of days to discontinuation was calculated in order to estimate patient persistence representing the time over which a patient continues to fill a prescription.

RESULTS

The results of the analysis indicate that only 12% of the population of patients treated with statins demonstrates proper level of both compliance and persistence. Statistically significant differences were found among different patient groups; however, in all the groups, compliance was lower than the minimal level required for clinical benefits.

CONCLUSIONS

The study revealed poor compliance among patients receiving statin prescriptions for hyperlipidaemia treatment. We presume that the most important factor for non-adherence can be lack of proper patient education, thus all patients on statin treatment should receive sufficient attention, supervision and better information.

Examination of the validity of the concept of vectorcardiography

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