Elsevier has created a COVID-19 resource centre with free information in English and Mandarin on the novel coronavirus COVID-19. The COVID-19 resource centre is hosted on Elsevier Connect, the company's public news and information website. Elsevier hereby grants permission to make all its COVID-19-related research that is available on the COVID-19 resource centre-including this research content-immediately available in PubMed Central and other publicly funded repositories, such as the WHO COVID database with rights for unrestricted research re-use and analyses in any form or by any means with acknowledgement of the original source. These permissions are granted for free by Elsevier for as long as the COVID-19 resource centre remains active.
BackgroundHigh turnover among general practitioners (GPs) is a significant challenge in China’s efforts to build a sustainable, effective primary care system, but little data is available to help understand and address this issue. The study was aiming at assessing the intention to leave their posts among a sample of GPs and investigating associated factors.MethodsA cross-sectional survey was conducted between December 12, 2014 and March 10, 2015 in Hubei Province, Central China. A total of 1016 GPs (response rate, 85.67%) were investigated by using a structured self-administered questionnaire. A generalized linear regression model was used to identify the associated factors with turnover intention among GPs.ResultsBased on a full score of 24, the average score for GPs’ turnover intention was 15.40 (SD = 3.43). 78.35% of the GPs had a moderate or higher level of turnover intention. Six hundred and thirty one (62.37%) GPs had ever been exposed to abuse of any kind (physical assault, 18.92%; verbal abuse, 54.38%; threat, 33.79%; verbal sexual harassment, 22.66%; and physical sexual harassment, 7.59%). Generalized linear regression analysis indicated that GPs who were male; who had a vocational school or higher; who had a temporary work contract; who were with lower level of job satisfaction; who reported higher scores on emotional exhaustion; who had been exposed to higher frequency of workplace violence were expressed higher intention to leave their present positions.ConclusionThis study shows that GP’s intention to leave general practices is high in Hubei, China. In addition, the prevalence of workplace violence is high among GPs, particularly in the verbal abuse and threat. Measures such as offering permanent contract status, increasing overall job satisfaction, and improving doctor-patient relationship, are needed to moderate GP’s turnover intention in order to maintain the foundation of China’s three-tier health system.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1186/s12875-018-0752-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.