Background Primary care doctors are the main providers of medical and preventive services. Understanding their current service capacity is crucial for guiding and optimizing relevant practices. However, systematic evaluations and comprehensive analyses of primary care doctors' capabilities to integrate medicine and prevention services remain limited.
Objective This study aimed to assess the current capacity of primary care doctors in Shandong Province for delivering integrated medical and preventive services and to analyze the factors influencing this capacity, providing a reference for improvement strategies.
Methods In August 2023, a multi-stage stratified random sampling method was used to conduct a questionnaire survey of 477 rural and community physicians in Shandong Province. The questionnaire included demographic characteristics and an evaluation of integrated service capacity. Scores for overall and dimension-specific capacities were categorized into high (≥80%) , medium (≥60% and <80%) , and low (<60%) groups. Ordinal Logistic regression was used to identify factors influencing integrated service capacity.
Results Among the respondents, 273 doctors (57.2%) demonstrated high overall capacity for integrated services. The number of doctors in the low-score group for professional knowledge and skills and for comprehensive service ability were 67 (14.0%) and 40 (8.4%) , respectively. Higher capacity was associated with having a bachelor's degree or above (OR=3.470, 95%CI=1.802-6.680) , awareness of policies on medical and preventive integration (OR=4.211, 95%CI=2.742-6.468) , perceived organizational emphasis on integration services (OR=2.36, 95%CI=1.347-4.138), and participation in at least two training sessions on integration (OR=2.557, 95%CI=1.228-5.324) (P<0.05) .
Conclusion The overall capacity of primary care physicians in Shandong Province to deliver integrated medical and preventive services is satisfactory. However, there is a need to strengthen professional knowledge, skills, and comprehensive service abilities. Efforts should focus on raising awareness of medical-preventive integration, implementing targeted training programs, and establishing innovative assessment and incentive mechanisms to further enhance the capacity of primary care doctors in this area.
