Study of occupational stability of general practitioners tailor-made for rural communities in Zhejiang province

Abstract

Objective To examine the occupational stability, training needs and capacity building requirements of the general practitioners purposely trained to work in rural communities, for improvement of policies regarding their training and issues related. Methods There counties were selected by stratified random sampling, where general practitioners graduated from such training completed an anonymous questionnaire.Focus group interviews were made to officials of the local Health and Family Planning Commission, those of primary healthcare institutions, and general practitioners themselves. Results The of the 190 valid questionnaires recovered, male accounted for 34.2% and female 65.8%.These general practitioners were mostly satisfied with their working environment, social status, work stress and job achievement, yet with lower satisfaction with their salary and availability of medical devices.Consideration of resignation was reported by only 5.3% of them, with more males than females.As high as 63.2% of them prefer to work in hospitals of county level.91.1% of them held it as necessary to participate in standard resident training, and 98.4% held it as necessary to have on-job training.94.7% of them have participated in further education to gain a bachelor degree in medicine. Conclusions These doctors were found with high stability to work in rural communities and low turnover intention.Further studies are required to encourage these general practitioners to serve rural communities in a long term, and to improve the standard resident training mechanism, and their career development. Key words: Zhejiang province; Tailor-made training; Community general practitioners; Occupational stability; Standard training