Evaluation and countermeasures of contracted services of Chinese family doctors from demanders’ point of view — a case study of a city

BACKGROUND: The “gatekeepers” for residents’ health are their family doctors. The implementation of contracted services provided by family doctors is conducive to promoting hierarchical diagnosis and treatment and achieving the objective of providing residents comprehensive and full-cycle health services. Since its implementation in 2016, the contract service system for Chinese family doctors has yielded a number of results while also highlighting a number of issues that require further investigation. Consequently, the purpose of this study is to assess the impact of family doctors’ contracted services in a Chinese city from the perspective of demanders (i.e., contracted residents), identify the weak links, and then propose optimization strategies. METHODS: In this study, a city in Shandong Province, China was selected as the sample city. In January 2020, 1098 contracted residents (including 40.5% men and 59.5% women) from 18 primary medical institutions (including township health centers and community health centers) were selected for on-site investigation. Take the PCAT-AS(Adult Short) scale revised in Chinese as the research tool to understand the medical experience of contracted residents in primary medical institutions, and interview some family doctors and residents to obtain more in-depth information. RESULTS: Among the four core dimensions of PCAT-AS, the score of Continuous was the highest (3.44 ± 0.58); The score of Coordinated was the lowest (3.08 ± 0.66); Among the three derived dimensions, the score of Family-centeredness was the highest (3.33 ± 0.65); The score of Culturally-competent was the lowest (2.93 ± 0.77). The types of contracting institutions, residents’ age, marital status, occupation, and whether chronic diseases are confirmed are the influencing factors of PCAT scores. CONCLUSION: The family doctors’ contracted services in the city has achieved certain results. At the same time, there are still some problems, such as difficult access to outpatient services during non-working hours, incomplete service items, an imperfect referral system, and inadequate utilization of traditional Chinese medicine services, it is recommended that the government continue to enhance and increase its investment in relevant policies and funds. Primary medical institutions should improve the compensation mechanism for family doctors and increase their work enthusiasm, improve and effectively implement the two-way referral system, gradually form an orderly hierarchical pattern of medical treatment, provide diversified health services in accordance with their own service capacity and the actual needs of residents, and improve the utilization rate of traditional Chinese medicine services in primary medical institutions. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12913-022-08891-6.