BACKGROUND Although numerous changes are apparent in the US health care system, little is known about how these changes have altered the work of primary care physicians. METHODS We analyzed a nationally representative sample of 136,233 adult office visits to general internists, general practitioners, and family physicians contained in the 1978 through 1981, 1985, and 1989 through 1994 Nationa...

OBJECTIVE To determine the health care resources and perceived barriers to care of families attending free vaccine fairs. DESIGN A cross-sectional survey. SETTING Twelve free vaccine fairs in Denver, Colorado, in 1994. PARTICIPANTS A total of 533 consecutive parents or guardians of children receiving vaccine at the fairs. Interventions. None. MEASUREMENTS/RESULTS Survey respondents repo...

AIM The aim of this analysis was to compare the level of self-perceived competencies of primary health care physicians in Kosovo with patients' viewpoint, as well as the necessary (required) level of such competencies from decision-makers' standpoint. METHODS Three cross-sectional studies were carried out in Kosovo in 2013 including: i) a representative sample of 1340 primary health care user...

when the japanese government adopted western medicine in the late nineteenth century, it left intact the infrastructure of primary care by giving licenses to the existing practitioners and by initially setting the hurdle for entry into medical school low. public financing of hospitals was kept minimal so that almost all of their revenue came from patient charges. when social health insurance (s...

BACKGROUND Facing rising inequities and poorer accessibility of physicians in rural areas, new healthcare delivery structures are being considered to support local healthcare in German communities. To better understand perspectives on and attitudes towards different supplementary models, we examined attitudes among local politicians in the German federal state of Lower Saxony towards the suitab...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Several studies reported that primary care improves health outcomes for populations. The objective of this study was to examine the relationship between the supply of primary care physicians and population health outcomes in Korea. METHODS Data were extracted from the 2007 report of the Health Insurance Review, the 2005 report from the Korean National Statistical Off...

BACKGROUND Integration of oral health promotion into general health care has been highly recommended by the World Health Organization. Primary-care physicians can as part of their general health care promote and contribute to improved oral health care. Our aim was to investigate primary-care physicians' knowledge of oral health, their attitudes toward delivering oral health care (OHC), and thei...

Our thanks go to AFP for the recent issue ‘Vision at risk’ (AFP October 2009). Numerous articles1–4 highlighted the difficulties experienced by GPs in the assessment, investigation and management of potentially catastrophic acute eye presentations. Although the articles were excellent, we feel that they only covered those presentations from the ‘severe’ end of the clinical spectrum, and failed ...

objective: in the last 30 years, ever since the phc network in iran has been established, the job duties of behvarzes (mental health workers in rural areas) have been constantly increasing. the aim of this study was to determine the burnout level, mental health status and the severity of occupational stress among behvarzes. methods: all behvarzes (227) working in areas covered by iran universit...