Challenges of Family Physician Program in Urban Areas: A Qualitative Research

Family physicians play an essential role and act as a communicational bridge between people and the healthcare system in providing healthcare services efficiently and equitably. This study aimed at exploring the challenges of the family physician program in urban areas in Iran in 2015.

This research had a descriptive exploratory design with a qualitative content analysis approach. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews between 2014 and 2015. Seventeen physicians enrolling in family physician program for at least two years were selected through purposeful sampling. Conventional content analysis was used to analyze the data.

Coding and analysis of the interview data generated two categories and seven subcategories related to the challenges of the family physician program. The categories were poor infrastructure and poor incentive mechanism.

Our findings captured a good picture of family physician program in urban areas to better clarify the challenges of the program and provide a foundation to plan and implement appropriate changes. Thus, our findings will give policymakers a deeper perception to confront the challenges of the family physician program in urban areas.