Primary care physicians' attitudes toward research: a cross-sectional descriptive study

Clinical research in family medicine can improve health outcomes and increase physicians' professionalism, yet is modest compared to other disciplines and receives little funding.

To identify factors that promote and impede engagement of family physicians in research and to compare characteristics of family physicians who do and do not engage in research.

During September to October 2018, e-mail questionnaires were sent to 1424 primary care physicians of one health maintenance organization. Respondents were classified as researchers and non-researchers based on their research experience. Responses were analysed using univariate analysis, principal component analysis and multivariate logistic regression.

Of 235 respondents, 48 (20.4%) were categorized as researchers. The respondents generally agreed that research in primary care improves medical services and provides professional prestige; and that workload, bureaucracy and lack of dedicated time hinder engagement in research. Logistic regression analysis identified several factors associated with being a researcher, including advanced research training (P = 0.001, AOR = 8.49, 95% CI [2.49-29.14]), reading more research articles (P = 0.013, AOR = 14.16, 95% CI [1.76-113.5] and self-employment (P = 0.005, AOR = 5.92, 95% CI [1.71-20.44]). In a factor analysis, only 'importance of research' was associated with being a researcher (P = 0.039, AOR = 1.89, 95% CI [1.03-3.48]). Compared to non-researchers, researchers were older (83.3% versus 51.3% aged >40 years, P < 0.001), more often men (60.4% versus 37.4%, P = 0.02) and worked more (41.7% versus 16.7% worked >41 hours weekly, P = 0.02).

Providing time dedicated to research, administrative support, research training and education about the importance of research could increase participation in research by primary care physicians.