Findings from the 2022 Commonwealth Fund International Health Policy Survey of Primary Care Physicians

SSRS worked with contractors in each country to survey doctors

For at least the past two decades, the United States and other countries around the world have been bracing for a shortage of physicians, a problem that has reached crisis proportions in recent years. Physician burnout during the COVID-19 pandemic has only exacerbated the shortage: at a time when regular health care has been disrupted and the prevalence of behavioral and mental health conditions has spiked, people’s access to basic primary care has been severely compromised.
This brief presents the first findings from the 2022 Commonwealth Fund International Health Policy Survey of Primary Care Physicians to explore the effects of the pandemic on the primary care workforce across nations. Conducted in 10 high-income countries, we compare changes in physician workload, stress, emotional distress, burnout, quality of care delivered, and physicians’ career plans. We also examine differences in these measures by age, categorizing “younger physicians” as under age 55 — roughly the average age of U.S. physicians — and “older physicians” as age 55 and older.