Private practice in rural areas: an untapped opportunity for dietitians

The purpose of this study was to describe the current demography of rural dietetic private practice and to determine the drivers and barriers for further development.

A sequential explanatory mixed methods approach was used. Document searches and semistructured in-depth individual interviews were used to collect quantitative and qualitative data.

Six rural case study sites of dietetic service delivery in rural northern New South Wales.

Forty key informants including past and present dietitians, dietetic managers and health service managers were recruited, of these a subset of 15 interviews included discussion or comments about private practice in rural areas.

Themes identified from the interview transcripts, Medicare enhanced primary care consultation data and public/private dietetic staffing levels from document searches.

Private practice staffing ranged between 0% and 26% of the dietetic workforce across the six sites in 2006. Themes relating to the drivers and barriers for private practice were identified: financial factors, job satisfaction, opportunities for private practice and establishing private practice.

There is an opportunity for growth of private practice to meet the gap in public dietetic services in rural areas.