Mental health status among physiotherapists. A cross-sectional study in Tunisia

Introduction In the high-stress world of healthcare, the intertwined relationship mental health and the life quality is pivotal. Prioritizing healthcare professionals’ mental health and nurturing a positive safety climate are essential to enhancing overall job satisfaction. Objectives Evaluate the mental health status of the physiotherapists. Methods his is a cross-sectional study among Physiotherapists (PTs) working in the city of Sousse. A self-administrated questionnaire was distributed either manually or via e-mail to collect information about the personal and occupational history of participants. The mentel health was assesed by the the mental component score (MCS-12) of the the Short Form Survey SF-12. Results A total of 93 questionnaires were collected. The PTs were 35±8 years old on average. Women made up 65.6% of the PTs. Sixty-six (71.7%) and sixty-two (67.4%) did not provide any medical or surgical history respectively and the majority of the population (54.5%) had a normal BMI. Among all respondents, nineteen (20.4%) PTs were regular smokers and an alcoholic beverage was consumed by 14 (15.7%) PTs. The sport was the common hobby of PTs (53.8%). In this group of PTs, 37 (40.2%) worked in the public sector, and 55 (59.8%) worked in the private sector. The mean seniority was 11.9±7.8 years and the average workweek for the population was 42.42 hours. The mean MCS-12 score was 43.94 (9.05 SD). The findings showed that 35 PTs (37.6%) had MCS-12 scores below the standard value. Male PTs showed slightly higher MCS-12 means than female PTs with a modest difference between PTs working in the public and private sectors. PTs who had more than 15 years of work experience scored the lowest MCS-12 mean 41.40 (SD 9.94) which is a score underneath the reference value indicating in this case low mental health functioning among PTs. Conclusions This study showed that Tunisian PTs had low mental health statuts highlighting the need for approaches to improve interventions that effectively enhance well-being, retention, and sustainability of practitioners, and thus the care delivered, in the healthcare system Disclosure of Interest None Declared