Family Physicians' Competency and Satisfaction about Emergency Services in Family Practice Centers, Egypt

Background: Emergency situations are not out of the ordinary in an active family practice. Actually, 90% of the cases seen in emergency room can be handled perfectly by a qualified family physician. Objectives: This study aimed to evaluate Family physicians' perceived competency in emergency skills and satisfaction on emergency services in family practice centers. Methods: This study is a cross-sectional analytic study; it was conducted between January and November 2017, in family medicine department. All family postgraduate physicians (master or medical doctorate) in the study period were included.Sample recruited was 35 family physicians. Data were collected using a self-administered questionnaire to determine the physicians’ perceived competency and satisfaction on dealing with emergency cases.                 Results: Physicians' age mean (SD) was 31.7 (4.7) years, most of them were females (85.7%), only 8.6% were qualified with master degree. Half (51.4%) did not attend Basic life support course. Also 80.0% and 77.1% did not attend Advanced Cardiac Life Support or Advanced Trauma Life Support course respectively. Males reported higher level of competency (mean rank=27.30), p=0.028. Physicians who had master degree reported higher competency in performing emergency skills (mean rank=32.83), P=0.009. Physicians who had attended ACLS (<1 year) reported highest score of perceived level of competency in performing skills (mean rank=31.0), P=0.015. Conclusion: There are deficits in perceived competency in performing emergency skills among family physicians, and high dissatisfaction with current emergency services. Also there is need for more training courses as BLS, ACLS, and ATLS for family physicians.