Diverse interpretations of general practice in China
| Medical students (n=418) | Township hospital doctors (GP-TT trainees) (n=1349) | Resident doctors (n=120) | PITs (n=1887) | Comparing three groups P value (χ² test, df=2) | |
| Theme I: GPs as all-specialty doctors | |||||
| General practice consists of all the specialties in medicine (% agreement and 95% CI) | 50 (45 to 55) | 84 (82 to 86) | 70 (62 to 78) | 76 (74 to 78) | 0.015 |
| General practice is more difficult to learn and needs longer training compared with specialist training (% agreement and 95% CI) | 86 (83 to 89) | 88 (86 to 90) | 84 (77 to 91) | 87 (86 to 89) | 0.962 |
| GPs are qualified to work in most departments of a hospital (% agreement and 95% CI) | 77 (73 to 81) | 76 (74 to 78) | 82 (75 to 89) | 77 (75 to 79) | 0.884 |
| Theme II: GPs as first-contact care | |||||
| GPs are family doctors (% agreement and 95% CI) | 54 (49 to 59) | 70 (68 to 72) | 54 (45 to 63) | 65 (63 to 68) | 0.232 |
| GPs are private personal doctors (% agreement and 95% CI) | 14 (11 to 17) | 16 (14 to 18) | 11 (5 to 17) | 15 (14 to 17) | 0.568 |
| GPs know everything but master nothing (% agreement and 95% CI) | 39 (34 to 44) | 29 (27 to 31) | 32 (24 to 40) | 31 (29 to 34) | 0.468 |
| GPs are like barefoot doctors or village doctors (% agreement and 95% CI) | 14 (11 to 17) | 26 (24 to 28) | 9 (4 to 14) | 22 (20 to 24) | 0.012 |
| Theme III: GPs as the ‘gate’ | |||||
| GPs are gatekeepers of residents’ health (% agreement and 95% CI) | 90 (87 to 93) | 97 (96 to 98) | 97 (94 to 100) | 95 (95 to 96) | 0.858 |
| GPs’ one main responsibility is referral (% agreement and 95% CI) | 69 (65 to 73) | 69 (67 to 71) | 58 (49 to 67) | 68 (66 to 70) | 0.517 |
| Theme IV: GPs versus TCM practitioners | |||||
| GPs can practise both western medicine and TCM (% agreement and 95% CI) | 54 (49 to 59) | 83 (81 to 85) | 47 (38 to 56) | 74 (72 to 76) | 0.003 |
| GPs are the doctors specialising in combination of western medicine and TCM (% agreement and 95% CI) | 27* (23 to 31) | 62 (59 to 65) | 28 (20 to 36) | 52 (50 to 54) | <0.001 |
| Theme V: GPs versus public health practitioners | |||||
| GPs’ main responsibility is public health work (% agreement and 95% CI) | 60 (55 to 65) | 69 (67 to 71) | 65 (56 to 74) | 67 (65 to 69) | 0.723 |
| GPs’ main role is prevention rather than diagnosis/treatment of diseases (% agreement and 95% CI) | 16 (12 to 20) | 38 (35 to 41) | 14 (8 to 20) | 32 (30 to 34) | <0.001 |
*For the 43 Tuition-waived Rural-oriented Undergraduate Medical Programme (TRUMP) students at Henan University of Chinese Medicine (HUCM), 60% of them agree with this statement.
GP, general practitioner; GP-TT, GP Transfer Training; PIT, policy implementation target; TCM, traditional Chinese medicine.