Abstract
Perception of healthcare providers who worked with family medicine specialists (FMSs) could translate into the effectiveness of primary healthcare delivery in daily practices. This study examined perceptions of public healthcare providers/professionals (PHCPs) on FMSs at public health clinics throughout Malaysia. This was a cross-sectional study in 2012-2013 using postal method targeting PHCPs from three categories of health facilities, namely health clinics, health offices and hospitals. A structured questionnaire was developed to assess PHCP’s perception of FMS’s clinical competency, safety practice, ethical and professional values, and research involvement. It consists of 37 items with Likert scale of strongly disagree (a score of 1) to strongly agree (a score of 5). Interaction and independent effect of the independent variables were tested and adjusted means score were reported. The participants’ response rate was 58.0% (780/1345) with almost equal proportion from each of the three public healthcare facilities. There were more positive perceptions than negative among the PHCPs. FMSs were perceived to provide effective and safe treatment to their patients equally disregards of patient’s social background. However, there were some concerns of FMSs not doing home visits, not seeing walk-in patients, had long appointment time, not active in scientific research, writing and publication. There were significant differences in perception based on a respondent’s health care facility (p < 0.0001) and frequency of encounter (p < 0.0001). PHCPs had overall positive perceptions on FMSs across all the domains investigated. PHCPs from different health care facilities and frequency of encounter with FMSs had different perception. Practicing FMSs could improve on the critical service areas that were perceived to be important but lacking. FMSs might need further support in conducting research and writing for publication.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s40064-015-1004-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Highlights
Collaboration between family physicians and other specialists is of critical importance to the care of many patients (Cook et al 2000; D’Amour et al 2005; Frost et al 2012)
Perception of healthcare providers, including the health clinic’s staff, who worked with family medicine specialists (FMSs) could affect the effectiveness of primary healthcare delivery on daily basis (Guldberg et al 2009; Pinder et al 2013; Stevenson et al 2001)
Perception of public healthcare providers/professionals (PHCPs) who worked closely with FMS was an essential piece of feedback information to primary health care in this country
Summary
Collaboration between family physicians and other specialists is of critical importance to the care of many patients (Cook et al 2000; D’Amour et al 2005; Frost et al 2012). Working together among the health care professionals on behalf of patients requires teamwork that occurs across a complex set of inter-professional relationships and services (Martin et al 2004). It requires skilful management of the relationships with appropriate authority in the collaboration and in need of vigilance for continuous process improvement (Martin et al 2004). This care coordination and co-operation among clinicians were the priority areas for quality improvement in many clinical practices (Adams and Corrigan 2003; A Committee on Quality of Health Care in America 2001). Further details on the primary health care system and issues surrounding the FMSs’ practice had been published in an earlier report (Chew et al 2014)
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