Study on middle-aged and elderly people′ willingness for family doctor contracting and its influencing factors / 中华医院管理杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective:To investigate the middle-aged and elderly people′ willingness for family doctor service contracts and its influencing factors, and to provide feasible suggestions for the implementation and promotion of family doctor services.Methods:Stratified random sampling method was adopted to select middle-aged and elderly people aged 45 in 6 urban areas of Xuzhou city for questionnaire survey to investigate their illness, medical treatment and their willingness to contract a family doctor. The data acquired were analyzed with statistical description, univariate analysis( χ2 test), and multivariate logistic regression analysis. Results:Among the 927 valid questionnaires were recovered, 272(29.34%)of them intended to contract a family doctor, and 655(70.66%)had no such intention. Results of multivariate logistic regression showed that the influencing factors of the middle-aged and elderly people′ willingness of contracting family doctors were age, occupation, self-rated health, treatment status within two weeks, chronic diseases, referral experience and their knowledge of family physician contract system.Conclusions:Middle-aged and elderly people at large are not willing to sign up for family doctors. It is recommended to focus the publicity efforts on those who are relatively younger age, farming and healthier, enhancing their awareness of the service, and encouraging them to support the dual-referral policy. These efforts are expected to promote the coordinated progress of both dual referral and family doctor contract service, hence achieving the national coverage of the family doctor system.