An Assessment of the Urban Family Physician Program in Iran from the Viewpoint of Managers and Administrators

Abstract

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: The urban family physician program was implemented in Fars and Mazandaran provinces in June 2012 to provide health services for the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of diseases and improvement of quality of life. Nearly five years after the performance record, this study was conducted to assess the urban family physician program. METHODS: This cross-sectional study was conducted among the managers and administrators of the urban family physician program in all cities of Fars and Mazandaran provinces in the winter of 2016. The data were collected using a researcher-made questionnaire including two parts; the personal variables with 11 open and closed questions and the performance level of the urban family physician program with 18 questions in Likert scale with a score of one to five. The average overall performance of the five points was classified into three levels; poor (below 2.5) average (2.5 - 3.5), and good (above 3.5). FINDINGS: Of 530 managers and administrators of the urban family physician program, 168 people (31.7%) assessed the performance of the program as weak, 295 people (55.7%) assessed it as average and 67 people (12.6%) found it to be good. The average overall performance of five points was assessed to be 2.83 ± 0.64. There was a significant relationship between the province of service, the urban population of the place of service, education, field of study, service record, place of service, and the position of managers and administrators and their judgment in assessing the performance level of the urban family physician program (p<0.05). CONCLUSION: The results of the study showed that performance level of the urban family physician program was average from the viewpoint of most managers and administrators