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Outflow management of health professionals in Serbia: survey results from a tertiary-level hospital


 
 
 Some rich countries are actively recruiting labour from abroad for lack of health workforce. A high-level tendency for emigration among health care personnel in Serbia has attracted the attention of policymakers. In the search for evidence that can support the interventions to manage the outflow of the health workforce, the objective of the study was to obtain the opinion of medical doctors and nurses about retention factors.
 
 
 
 A 65-item questionnaire was distributed to 384 hospital physicians and nurses to explore their views on fourteen aspects for labour outflow management (recruitment, training, job, salary, benefits, managers' behaviour, career development, relationships, work conditions, institutional image, organizational support, and three types of organizational commitment). Any difference between physicians and nurses and their responses' scores was assessed with Pearson Chi-Square (p < 0.05) and Independent Samples t-test (p < 0.05).
 
 
 
 Few nurses (17.8%) and physicians (13.6%) are familiar with measures taken in the country to manage the migration of healthcare workers, but most would work abroad if given such opportunities (56.8% and 63.0%, respectively). The responses of physicians and nurses differ for many aspects of management; the best scored were managers' behaviour (11.9 v 10.4, respectively, p < 0.001) and organizational support (15.3 v 13.4, respectively, p < 0.001), while the least scored were job benefits (4.1 v 4.0, respectively p = 0.531), salary (5.9 v 5.8, respectively p = 0.459), relationships (5.3 v 5.3, respectively p = 0.911) and performance assessment (5.3 v 4.9, respectively p = 0.008).
 
 
 
 The study has identified success and failure factors for the outflow management of health workers in Serbia. Hospital doctors scored higher than nurses almost all retention factors. There is a space to strengthen the policy and practice to retain hospital doctors and nurses in the country.
 
 
 
 Hospital nurses are in a worse position than hospital doctors in regard to almost all aspects of outflow management. Stakeholders should invest in retaining medical doctors and nurses in the hospital.
