Table 2. Characteristics of the practices' organisation and GPs’ loss of meaning in work
Practice organisationn (%)a
Total working hours per week, mean (SD)46.6 (11.6)
Duration of consultation, minutes, mean (SD)19.6 (5.8)
Usual time necessary for receiving hospital discharge, daysb
 1–460 (30)
 5–1480 (40)
 15–3038 (19)
 >3014 (7)
Being GP as unique work activity67 (34)
Teaching activity61 (31)
Number of face-to-face patient contacts in a day, mean (SD)24.0 (8:1)
Number of email patient contacts in a day, mean (SD)1.5 (2.9)
Number of night on-call duties in the past 3 months, mean (SD)4.4 (10.5)
Number of weekend on-call duties in the past 3 months, mean (SD)2.1 (5.3)
Meeting face to face with other GPs
 >1/month120 (60)
Meeting face to face with hospital specialists
 >1/month42 (21)
Feeling of lack of respectc
 Strongly disagree12 (6)
 Disagree119 (60)
  Agree53 (27)
 Strongly agree12 (6)
Administrative overload
 Strongly disagree1 (1)
 Disagree39 (20)
 Agree86 (43)
 Strongly agree73 (37)
Loss of meaning in workd
 Strongly disagree62 (31)
  Disagree75 (38)
  Agree48 (24)
  Strongly agree13 (7)
  • N = 199. aUnless otherwise stated. bMissing data (n = 7). cMissing data (n = 3). dMissing data (n = 1). SD = standard deviation