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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Health Serv.
Sec. Health Workforce
Volume 5 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/frhs.2025.1548525

Influence of working conditions on German paramedics' intention to leave the profession: a cross-sectional study

Provisionally accepted
Thomas Hofmann Thomas Hofmann 1,2*Michael Stanley Michael Stanley 2,3Luis Möckel Luis Möckel 2
  • 1 HSD Hochschule Döpfer University of Applied Sciences, Köln, Germany
  • 2 German Society of Paramedic Science, Aachen, Germany
  • 3 Offshore Rescue, Johanniter-Unfall-Hilfe, Berne, Germany

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    IntroductionIt is well known that Germany’s ambulance service (AS) suffers from a shortage of qualified personnel, which may increase in the following years. For this reason, this study aimed to determine the percentage of AS staff considering leaving their profession and to analyse the possible causes. MethodsA self-developed questionnaire and the Employee Experience Questionnaire (EXQ) were used for this cross-sectional study. ResultsA total of 814 AS staff with a mean age of 35.71 (standard deviation [SD] 9.78) years were included in this study. Immediately leaving the AS was the intention of 17.27% of participants, with 2.86% having already resigned, 14.29% taking actions such as applying for a job, and another 14.04% specifically planning to leave the AS in the foreseeable future. Those who plan to leave the AS immediately (3.82 [SD 0.79]) showed significantly lower EXQ scores than the group who plan to stay in the EMS until retirement (4.92 [SD 0.87]; pTukey ≤0.001). At the same time, it is noticeable that EMS staff often suffer from unfavourable working conditions, such as not being granted breaks, work-related calls during free time, and over time, and significant correlations with the planned length of stay in the paramedic service and exit thoughts were identified here.ConclusionUnfavourable working conditions further aggravate the already existing shortage of qualified personnel in the ambulance service, so measures by various decision-makers are imperative.

    Keywords: paramedic, Working conditions, Job Satisfaction, commitment, intention to leave, retention

    Received: 19 Dec 2024; Accepted: 15 Jan 2025.

    Copyright: © 2025 Hofmann, Stanley and Möckel. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Thomas Hofmann, HSD Hochschule Döpfer University of Applied Sciences, Köln, Germany

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.