Financial challenges of students and early-career professionals working in the healthcare sector: a scoping review.

Abstract

The global healthcare workforce is facing a substantial shortage and an uneven distribution of qualified professionals, which restricts access to essential healthcare services. This shortage could be mitigated through more effective support of healthcare workers in training. Therefore, an overview of existing economic barriers for this demographic is necessary. To review the existing literature on financial challenges of students and early-career professionals in the healthcare sector. Following the PRISMA-ScR-guidelines, publications published between January 2008 and February 2024 were identified using PubMed and Scopus. 17,268 articles were screened by reviewing their titles and abstracts followed by a detailed review of full texts with cross-validation. Themes were identified, clustered, and analyzed. This scoping review included 167 articles focusing on the themes debt (36.5%, n=61) and loans (10.2 %, n=17) and their influence on career pathways, the role of employment for career satisfaction, summarizing findings concerning salary (29.9%, n=50), finances (25.1%, n=42), funding (10.8%, n=18), and savings (10.2%, n=17), and obstacles toward a sustainable lifestyle, which included results considering career choice (34.1%, n=57), migration (7.2%, n=12), gender disparity (6.0%, n=10) and working conditions (2.4 %, n=4). Efforts to close the healthcare workforce gap require greater investment in training, compensation, and support of junior healthcare workers. Students and early-career professionals need particular attention to build a sustainable, resilient, and reliable healthcare workforce