Determining factors in the retention of physicians in rural and underdeveloped areas: a systematic review
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(2020) 21:216
RESEARCH ARTICLE
Open Access
Determining factors in the retention of physicians in rural and underdeveloped areas: a systematic review Nasrin Mohammadiaghdam1, Leila Doshmangir1,2* , Javad Babaie1, Roghayeh Khabiri1 and Koen Ponnet3
Abstract Background: Imbalance in distribution of Health Care Workers (HCWs) in a country is a global challenge. Almost all of the rural and underdeveloped areas are struggling with the shortage of HCWs, especially physicians. Therefore, this study aimed to identify factors governing the retention of physicians in rural and underdeveloped areas. Methods: International databases including Scopus, PubMed, Web of Science, Proquest, and Embase were searched using Mesh terms in order to find peer-reviewed journal articles addressing physicians’ retention factors in rural and underdeveloped areas. The records were screened, and any duplicate results were removed. The quality of the studies was assessed according to the Critical Appraisal Skills Program developed for different types of studies. Then, through content analysis, the related factors were identified from finally selected papers, coded, and categorized. Results: The initial search resulted in 2312 relevant articles. On the basis of specific selection criteria, 35 full-text articles were finally reviewed.. The major affecting factors in physicians’ retention in rural and underdeveloped regions were classified into the following six categories: 1) financial; 2) career and professional; 3) working conditions; 4) personal; 5) cultural; and 6) living conditions factors. Conclusion: There is a complex interplay of factors governing physicians’ retention in rural and underdeveloped areas. If health organizations are concerned with physicians’ retention in deprived areas, they should take into account these main factors. Moreover, they should develop policies and strategies to attract and retain physicians in rural and underdeveloped areas. Keywords: Health care workers, Health system, Physicians, Retention, Rural areas, Under developed areas
* Correspondence: [email protected] 1 Department of Health Policy& Management, Tabriz Health Services Management Research Center, Iranian Center of Excellence in Health Management, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran 2 Social Determinants of Health Services Research, Health Management and safety Promotion Research Institute, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran Full list of author information is available at the end of the article © The Author(s). 2020 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in
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