Survey on teaching status of general practitioners in community health centers of Shanghai

Abstract

Objective To survey the current situation of teaching for general practitioners (GPs) in community health centers of Shanghai. Methods A questionnaire survey on the teaching situation was conducted among 742 GP mentors who attended a municipal training workshop during July to October 2012 in Shanghai. The items of the survey included general background, previous teaching experience and self-evaluation on teaching ability. Results Among 742 GP mentors receiving the survey, the average age was (37± 6) years old. 49.8% (366/734) of mentors expressed their willingness of teaching, and the main reason was that it may upgrade themselves, while learning from teaching (58.6%, 419/715). Heavy work load, lack of teaching time (31.8%, 378/1 187) and teaching experience (30.7%, 364/1 187) were the main obstacles for teaching. Among 106 GP mentors who had teaching experience in community health center previously, 79.2% (80/101) made teaching plans, but only 8.9% (9/102) often prepared syllabus. Teaching plans were made mainly according to the work needs in community health care (54.2%, 52/96), the situation and demands students (29.1%, 28/96) or requirement of syllabus (17.7%, 17/96). The problems included lack of teaching experience (50.5%, 50/99) and time (42.4%, 42/99), monotonous instructional modality (24.1%, 25/104), and weak operability of the syllabus (21.2%). The self-reported results showed that 14.4% were not able to develop a teaching program and to execute, 18.3% were not able to use a variety of teaching methods, 31.2% were not able to engage in teaching for 1.5 days per week. Logistic regression analysis showed that mentors with higher education background (OR=2.027, P<0.05), community teaching experience (OR=3.069, P<0.05), higher self assessment of general personal quality and communication ability (OR=2.488, P<0.05), higher teaching ability (OR=2.399, P<0.05) and strong training wishes (OR=11.382, P<0.05) were more willing to engage in the teaching work. Conclusions Heavy work load, insufficiency of teaching capacity and experience are main problems for GP mentors in Shanghai community health centers. Educational theory and methods should be focus on teacher training so as to improve teaching abilities. Key words: Education, medical; Questionnaire; General practitioners