Knowledge and Opinions of Interns of Faculty of Medicine About Community Health Centers

Abstract

Aim: In the study, it was aimed to determine the knowledge and opinions about community health center structuring and practices among the interns of Eskişehir Osmangazi University Faculty of Medicine.Methods: The study is a qualitative study conducted on interns who received Public Health Internship at Eskişehir Osmangazi University Medicine Faculty between January-April 2018. The study groupconsisted of 57 interns. In the study in which the interview method was used, the data were collected with an interview form containing 7 open-ended questions. The responses given by the interns were coded and evaluated by descriptive analysis. The numbers and percentages of coded responses were calculated.Results: Interns reported the most frequent among the community health center duties, activities to improve and promote health, plan and program, infectious diseases, immunization and epidemic control;among the community health center physician's duties, to take part in the protection and promotion of the community health, conduct programs related to infectious diseases and immunization and public health education. Items included in the Community Health Center and Affiliated Units Regulation, but not specified by the interns as the duties of the community health center and community health centerphysician, were determined. 59.7% (n=34) of the interns reported that the practices related to community health center in the Public Health internship were beneficial in terms of contributing to their futureprofessional life. While 70.2% (n=40) of the interns thought that community health centers have an important role in improving the health level in our country; 49.1% (n=28) of them reported that they donot want to work at community health center after graduation. Conclusions: It was determined that the interns could not fully comprehend the duties of the community health center and community health center physicians. Despite the fact that community health center education was found to be beneficial and community health centers were considered important, the high number of interns who did not want to work in community health centers in their professional life drew attention.