Sociodemographic Characteristics of Healthcare Staffs in a Lead Cluster Hospital

Introduction The increasing feminisation of the healthcare workforce has been reported in Malaysia and globally, leading to challenges in human resources for health and policy implications for the future. Hence, the objective of our study was to determine the demographics of the healthcare staffs at Hospital Seberang Jaya, Penang.   

Methodology An online survey was conducted from November 2020 to December 2020. A questionnaire was sent out to the healthcare staff to enquire about some basic sociodemographic features like gender, age, marital status, ethnicity, religion, and so forth.    

Results Female respondents had a mean (SD) age of 34.3 (7.6) years and male respondents were slightly younger with a mean (SD) age of 32.9 (7.3) years. The trend in ethnicity was similar in both male and female groups. The majority of the respondents were Malay, followed by Chinese and Indian. This also correlated with the pattern observed for religious affiliation where Islam was the most common religion practiced by both male (57.0%) and female respondents (77.2%). In addition, more than 60% of the male respondents and close to 80% of the female respondents were married. Generally, there were more male respondents smoking (7.6% versus 1.8%) and reporting alcohol use (15.2% versus 4.1%). More than 95% of the female respondents claimed that they did not engage in smoking and drinking.    

Conclusion The healthcare workforce at Hospital Seberang Jaya were predominantly females in their 30s. A future study to examine the differences between the genders in earnings is warranted. 

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