Original Article

Estimate General Practitioners Active Supply in Iran: Capture-Recapture Method for Three Data Sources

Abstract

Background: Accurate estimation of active general practitioners (GPs) is a concern for health authorities to estimate requirements. This study aimed to accurately estimate GPs active supply in Iran using three sources capture-recapture (CRC) method.

Methods: This cross-sectional study collected data during 2015-2016, targeting all GPs registered in three independent data sources; a national survey from all hospitals, database of human resource management office at health ministry and physicians' offices databank. Variables including medical council codes, GP names, surnames and national ID codes were used for data linkage among the three sources. Three sources CRC method was applied using log-linear models to estimate the total number of active GPs in STATA software.

Results: Overall, 27,048 GPs were identified after removing the duplicate records. Based on CRC three sources data, the total number of GPs were 53,630 in 2015-2016. Distribution of GPs per 1,000 population among the provinces indicates that provinces of Kohgiluyeh & Boyer Ahmad, Mazandaran, Golestan and Yazd with ratios of 1.28, 1.28, 1.21 and 1.17 physicians rank the highest proportion of GPs and the provinces of Sistan & Baluchestan, Ilam, Zanjan, Alborz, North Khorasan with corresponding ratios of 0.24, 0.40, 0.40, 0.43 and 0.45 GPs ranked the lowest.

Conclusion: CRC method is known to be the best and rapidest method to estimate active GP due to its compatibility for the current situation of databanks in Iran. Therefore, this method is a good application in human resource distribution and planning.

1. Sunaert P, Vandekerckhove M, Bastiaens H et al (2011). Why do GPs hesitate to refer diabetes patients to a self-management education program: a qualitative study. BMC Fam Pract, 12: 94.
2. Darzi A, Evans T (2016). The global short-age of health workers-an opportunity to transform care. Lancet, 388 (10060): 2576-7.
3. Dehnavieh R, Kalantari AR, Jafari Sirizi M (2015). Urban family physician plan in Iran: challenges of implementation in Kerman. Med J Islam Repub Iran, 29: 303.
4. Farzadi F, Mohammad K, Maftoon F et al (2009). General practitioner supply: family physician program and medical work-force. Payesh Health Monit, 8 (4): 415-21.
5. Esmaeili R, Hadian M, Rashidian A, Shariati M, Ghaderi H (2014). Family medicine in Iran: facing the health system challenges. Glob J Health Sci, 7 (3): 260-6.
6. Chaichian MA (2011). The new phase of globalization and brain drain: Migration of educated and skilled Iranians to the United States. Int. j. soc, 39(1/2): 18-38.
7. Ronaghy HA, Shajari A (2013). The Islamic Revolution of Iran and migration of phy-sicians to the United States. Arch Iran Med, 16 (10): 590-3.
8. Ricketts TC, Randolph R (2007). Urban-rural flows of physicians. J Rural Health, 23 (4): 277-85.
9. Mazumdar S, McRae I (2015). Doctors on the move: National estimates of geo-graphical mobility among general practi-tioners in Australia. Aust Fam Physician, 44 (10): 747-51.
10. Eley DS, Synnott R, Baker PG, Chater AB (2012). A decade of Australian Rural Clin-ical School graduates--where are they and why? Rural Remote Health, 12: 1937.
11. Suwanrungruang K, Sriplung H, Attasara P et al (2011). Quality of case ascertainment in cancer registries: a proposal for a virtu-al three-source capture-recapture tech-nique. Asian Pac J Cancer Prev, 12 (1): 173-8.
12. Honarmand R, Mozhdehifard M, Kavosi Z (2017). Geographic distribution indices of general practitioners, midwives, pediatri-cians, and gynecologists in the public sec-tor of Iran. Electron Physician, 9 (6): 4584-9.
13. Meskarpour-Amiri M, Mehdizadeh P, Ba-rouni M et al (2014). Assessment the trend of inequality in the distribution of intensive care beds in Iran: using GINI index. Glob J Health Sci, 6 (6): 28-36.
14. Goudarzi R, Meshkani Z, Barooni M, Jahan MN, Moalemi S (2015). Distribution of general practitioners in the health system of iran using equity indices (gini, atkin-son). Health Develop J, 4(3):247-0.
15. Human resource division, ministry of health (2014). Human Resources for Health Country Profile Bhutan. Pp.: 53-7.
16. Human Resource Mnagemnt Unit, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (2013). Peo-ple's republic of Bangladesh human resource for health country. Pp.: 42-57.
17. World Health Organization (2011). Human Resources for Health Country Profile: Indonesia. World Health Organization (WHO): World Health Organisation Regional Of-fice for South-East Asia, Pp.: 31-2.
18. Health Resource Facility (2012). Human Re-sources for Health Country Profile Timor-Leste. Ministériu da Saúde, Timor-Leste. Pp.: 26-39.
19. Sharma J (2013). Chronic disease manage-ment in the South-East Asia Region: a need to do more. WHO South East Asia J Public Health, 2 (2): 79-82.
20. Gupta I, Guin P (2010). Communicable dis-eases in the South-East Asia Region of the World Health Organization: towards a more effective response. Bull World Health Organ, 88 (3): 199-205.
21. Nordic Medico-Statistical Committee (2016). Health Statistics for the Nordic Coun-tries. Pp.: 40-209.
22. Mossialos E, Wenzl M, Osborn R, Ander-son C (2017). International Profiles of Health Care Systems. The Common-wealth Fund.
23. Supply, Distribution and Migration of Ca-nadian Physicians, 1986-2004. In: Scott's Medical Database CIfHI, editor. 2005-2015. Pp.: 1-181.
24. Workforce and Facilities Team, Health and Social Care Information Centre (2014). General and Personal Medical Services: England 2003–13. Health & Social Care Information Centre.
25. Pedersen KM, Andersen JS, Søndergaard J (2012). General practice and primary health care in Denmark. J Am Board Fam Med,S34-S8.
26. Tatar M, Mollahaliloğlu S, Şahin B AS, Maresso A, Hernández-Quevedo C (2011). Turkey: Health system review. Health Syst Transit, 13(6):1–186.
27. Joos S, Musselmann B, Szecsenyi J (2011). Integration of complementary and alter-native medicine into family practices in Germany: results of a national survey. Evid Based Complement Alternat Med, 2011: 495813.
28. Basak O, Saatci E (1998). The developments of general practice/family medicine in Turkey. EJGP, 4(3):126-9.
29. Akdeniz M, Yaman H, Senol Y, Akbayin Z, Cihan FG, Celik SB (2011). Family prac-tice in Turkey: views of family practice residents. Postgrad Med, 123 (3): 144-9.
30. Naghavi M, Abolhassani F, Pourmalek F et al (2009). The burden of disease and inju-ry in Iran 2003. Popul Health Metr, 7: 9.
31. Hancock C, Steinbach A, Nesbitt TS, Adler SR, Auerswald CL (2009). Why doctors choose small towns: a developmental model of rural physician recruitment and retention. Soc Sci Med, 69 (9): 1368-76.
32. Honda A, Vio F (2015). Incentives for non-physician health professionals to work in the rural and remote areas of Mozam-bique--a discrete choice experiment for eliciting job preferences. Hum Resour Health, 13: 23.
33. Grenier M-L (2015). The impact of brain drain in underserved countries: imple-menting a global ethical leadership ap-proach. IJMHSC, 11(3):218-22.
Files
IssueVol 48 No 12 (2019) QRcode
SectionOriginal Article(s)
DOI https://doi.org/10.18502/ijph.v48i12.3557
Keywords
General practitioner Capture-recapture Supply Iran
Rights and permissions
Creative Commons License This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
How to Cite
1.
SHOKRI A, AKBARI-SARI A, BAYAT M, KHODADOST M, RAHIMI FOROUSHANI A, MIRBAHAEDDIN E, FARZIANPOUR F. Estimate General Practitioners Active Supply in Iran: Capture-Recapture Method for Three Data Sources. Iran J Public Health. 2019;48(12):2240-2248.