What every doctor should know about work and health: a needs analysis in six European countries

Introduction
All doctors should have ‘work and health’ competencies. In most of the European universities occupational medicine is a part of the medical curriculum. Learning objectives are formulated by staff members of the universities. We know little about the ‘work and health’ competencies as experienced by stakeholders. Therefore we explored the perceived needs of stakeholders in six countries: Belgium, France, Serbia, Romania, Spain and The Netherlands. A survey on the state of the art at the medical faculties in Europe and the needs analysis are the basic elements of a European module on occupational medicine that will be developed in the EMUTOM project.

Methods
An open answer questionnaire was distributed to a convenience sample of stakeholders: patients, general practitioners, insurance physicians, occupational physicians and hospital specialists. They were asked to articulate which ‘work and health’ competencies, according to their opinion, medical students should have at the end of their medical study. And next to prioritize their answers. The answers were attributed to categories independently by two researchers.

Results
Answers were classified into five categories: general introduction to work and health, effects of work on health (occupational diseases), fitness for work, structure and roles and finally health promotion. Preliminary results in three countries indicate remarkable agreements and differences. Results of the analyses of all five countries will be available at the time of the ICOH conference

Discussion
For the development of the European Module agreements among experts and stakeholders are valuable. For the categories where differences are established compromises should be found. For some categories, e.g. structure and roles, the module will be different per country. We expect that a large majority of the needs will be common and therefore will form a solid basis for a European Module.