Obstacles and Satisfaction to Balance Between Family Life and Medical Career Among Saudi Women Doctors

Background: Besides their medical career obligations, female physicians traditionally have assumed responsibility for raising families and maintaining the household. Finding an acceptable balance between their career and family life is challenging.

Objective: The study aimed to discover the obstacles and the relationship between the barriers/factors with the satisfaction in balancing career and family life.

Methodology: A cross-sectional study that analyzed data from Saudi female physicians. The study included 165 female physicians from the six Ministry of Health hospitals in Al-Madinah Al-Munawarah; 65 were specialists and consultants, and 100 were general practitioners and residents. The data were collected from October until the end of November 2022 through a semi-structured, self-administered questionnaire gathered by convenience sampling. The data were collected and analyzed with SAS software.

Results: The study's main findings include a satisfaction rate in balancing career and family life among the studied female physicians, which was low at 15.7%. In comparison, female physicians unsatisfied with such balancing were 38.2%. The effect of family responsibilities on career choice was nearly equal, where 50.3% of the studied female physicians affected them. There was a statistically significant difference regarding the satisfaction in balancing career with family life by their specialty; female surgeons and gyn/obs physicians found a higher percentage of unsatisfaction, whereas, among family medicine physicians, the least rate of unsatisfaction was found (P-value < 0.01). At 80% of the studied physicians suggested providing childcare centers as the main solution to their difficulties and obstacles; also, 46.5% suggested taking more days off of maternity leave. Transportation difficulties, however, represented the lowest type of difficulty, 12.7%.

Conclusion: The present study has revealed several obstacles facing female physicians that negatively impact relationships with their families.