Rural family physician system in Iran: Key challenges from the perspective of managers and physicians, 2016

ABSTRACT

This research is a descriptive analytical study that determines the existing challenges of the family physician program in 2016 in the largest province of Iran, Grate Khorasan, from the views of physicians and managers working in this program. The data collection tool was a researcher-made questionnaire. The questionnaire validity was investigated using experts’ opinions while its reliability was evaluated using Cronbach’s alpha. To analyze data, statistical tests of Mann–Whitney U, T test and ANOVA were used at a significance level of 0.05. Results of the study indicate that in managers’ view, the largest and smallest challenges pertain to the information system (3.95 ± 0.72) and performance appraisal (3.42 ± 0.75), respectively. The highest and lowest differences of opinion between managers and physicians are in the domain of welfare facilities (0.20 ± 0.61) and (0.17 ± 0.04), respectively. It should be noted that the family physician program has had some difficulties and challenges. Results of this study indicate that the biggest challenges are in the domains of service compensation, healthcare insurance system, recruitment and retention of human resources and finance.

KEYWORDS:

• Challenge; rural family physician; family physician program
• Grate Khorasan Iran
• physicians’ perspective
• managers’ perspective

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Ethics approval: This study is approved by ethical committee of the Mashhad University of Medical Sciences (91/4875).

Notes on contributors

Elaheh Hooshmand is an assistant professor in health care administration.

Zohre Nejatzadegan, MSc, is in health care administration.

Hossein Ebrahimipour is an associate professor in health care administration.

Mahmoud Bakhshi is an assistant professor in nursing.

Habibollah Esmaili is professor in biostatistics.

Ali Vafaeenajar is professor in health care administration.

ORCID

Elaheh Hooshmand http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8916-7426

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Mashhad University of Medical Sciences.