In many countries, public sector has major difficulties in recruiting and retaining physicians to work as general practitioners (GPs). We examined the effects of taking up a public sector GP position and leaving public sector GP work on the changes of job satisfaction, job involvement and turnover intentions. In addition, we examined whether organizational justice in the new position would moderate these associations. This was a four-year prospective questionnaire study including two measurements among 1581 (948 women, 60%) Finnish physicians. A change to work as a public GP was associated with a substantial decrease in job satisfaction and job involvement when new GPs experienced that their primary care organization was unfair. However, high organizational justice was able to buffer against these negative effects. Those who changed to work as public GPs had 2.8 times and those who stayed as public GPs had 1.6 times higher likelihood of having turnover intentions compared to those who worked in other positions. Organizational justice was not able to buffer against this effect. Primary care organizations should pay more attention to their GPs - especially to newcomers - and to the fairness how management behaves towards employees, how processes are determined, and how rewards are distributed.
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