Meaningful professional activities from family medicine practitioners’ perspectives: a study from Saudi Arabia

BACKGROUND: Family medicine practitioners (FMP) take care of a varied range of patients with undifferentiated conditions over a lifetime. Although it was incepted in Saudi Arabia in 1980, limited data exists on FMP. This paper explores what family physicians deem relevant. METHODS: A cross-sectional survey was conducted among FMP in Saudi Arabia in 2018–2019 who responded to an online questionnaire that listed 20 activities usually done by FMP asking them to rate their meaningfulness on a 5-point Likert Scale, and select the top 3 they would like to spend the most and the least time on. Chi-square statistics were used to compare preference for time spent on these six activities by participant characteristics RESULTS: Of the 415 survey participants, the majority were male (246) and had a Bachelor’s degree (176). The management of risk conditions, follow-up of chronic illnesses and running preventive health clinics were listed as most meaningful. The majority wished to spend more time on managing health risks, handling daily common complaints and follow-up of chronic illnesses and less time on terminal care activities (46.8%), emergency care (32.3%) and addiction medicine (23.4%). Bachelor’s degree holders wished to spend more time on emergency care compared to Diploma, Board-certified and Fellowship holders (63%, 21%, 10% and 5%, respectively; P = 0.01). CONCLUSIONS: The activities preferred by FMP align with prevailing disease epidemiology. Variations in preferences of ‘managing emergencies’ reflect the varied format of training. Training of FMP should be standardized and further studies investigate reasons for specific preferences.