Table 3.

Differences in attitudes towards part-time work between full-time and part-time working specialists in internal medicine in 1996 and in 2004

	1996 (n = 200)		2004 (n = 327)
	Part-timers	Full-timers	Part-timers	Full-timers
- Part-time working is restrictive towards autonomy	2.5	2.0	2.6	2.3**
- A part-time specialist invests as much in overhead-tasks (e.g. administration) as full-time specialists	1.9	1.8	2.0	1.6**
- A small part-time job (< 0.3 FTE) at the start of a career is disastrous for building up an independent position as a specialist	1.4	1.3	1.5	1.3
- Working part-time is threatening to the continuity of patient care	2.3	1.5	2.4	1.8***
- Part-time working is negative for communication and contacts with colleagues	2.2	1.7	2.2	1.8*
- For professionalism, working part-time or full-time is not important	2.3	2.0	2.4	2.2*
- For a part-time specialist it is not possible to build up a network with other health care partners	2.5	2.0	2.6	2.3***
- The lesser hours worked the lesser efficiency will be reached	2.3	1.8	2.3	1.8
- If the proportion of part-time specialists increases, the flexibility of task division will be higher	2.1	1.8	2.0	1.7
- The number of part-time specialists in our speciality have reached a ceiling	2.9	2.6	2.7	2.5*

Attitude was scored from 1–3: 1=I fully agree and 3=I do not agree at all. A higher score reflects a more positive attitude. (Item 2, 6 and 9 were recoded).

All comparisons with t-tests between part-timers in 1996 and 2004 and between full-timers in 1996 and in 2004

*p < .05; **p < .01; ***p < .001