Abstract

ABSTRACT Background: Family medicine is considered the cornerstone of health system. It's defined as medical specialty, which provides continuing and comprehensive health care for the individual and the family. The family physicians should be very well trained to be qualified for this purpose. Family medicine became a recognized specialty in our country since a proximately 30 years. Postgraduate family medicine training program established at KSA in 1981 in King Faisal University. Resident's opinion is very important as they are the target of the training process and will help a lot in future improvement. Aims &
Objective: To determine the level of residents’ satisfaction about the training curriculum at different levels (R1 to R4) in the JPFCM and to predicts the factors that affecting their training.
Materials and Methods: This was Cross sectional analytic study of residents and postgraduates conducted at Jeddah city, in the Joint Program of Family and Community Medicine. All the residents at different level (R1 to R4) at year 2012 and 3 years post graduates from Joint Program of Family and Community Medicine. More than 3 years Post graduates family physician were excluded from the study. Data collection was done using self-administered modified validated questionnaire of Family practice competency questionnaire (FPCQ).
Results: The perception of most curriculum training items were rated as very important by the trainees. The adequacy of training was lower than trainees’ expectation especially in procedures skills. Lack of health care supporting system, quality of hospital training, lack of job description, and interruption of continuity of care among other factors were most important factors affecting the training. 48% of trainees were generally satisfied about training adequacy and 62% were satisfied of being a family physician. Conclusion: 35% of the trainees were dissatisfied about their training 89% were currently residents and 10% postgraduates. 42% of the trainees were satisfied. Satisfaction was decline during residency years but it picked up in post graduate to reach the highest during 3rd year postgraduate. This level of satisfaction could be explained by that the training provided during the residency rotations especially in non-family medicine rotations was below the expectations of the trainees. This result was cleared through the factors affecting their satisfaction about the training as we observed that Most factors affecting the training were lack of health care system supporting the specialty and the quality of the training during hospital rotations.