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A systematic review of strategies to recruit and retain primary care doctors

Overview of attention for article published in BMC Health Services Research, April 2016
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About this Attention Score

  • In the top 5% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (94th percentile)
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source (95th percentile)

Mentioned by

news
1 news outlet
blogs
1 blog
policy
3 policy sources
twitter
34 X users

Citations

dimensions_citation
135 Dimensions

Readers on

mendeley
314 Mendeley
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Title
A systematic review of strategies to recruit and retain primary care doctors
Published in
BMC Health Services Research, April 2016
DOI 10.1186/s12913-016-1370-1
Pubmed ID
Authors

Puja Verma, John A. Ford, Arabella Stuart, Amanda Howe, Sam Everington, Nicholas Steel

Abstract

There is a workforce crisis in primary care. Previous research has looked at the reasons underlying recruitment and retention problems, but little research has looked at what works to improve recruitment and retention. The aim of this systematic review is to evaluate interventions and strategies used to recruit and retain primary care doctors internationally. A systematic review was undertaken. MEDLINE, EMBASE, CENTRAL and grey literature were searched from inception to January 2015. Articles assessing interventions aimed at recruiting or retaining doctors in high income countries, applicable to primary care doctors were included. No restrictions on language or year of publication. The first author screened all titles and abstracts and a second author screened 20 %. Data extraction was carried out by one author and checked by a second. Meta-analysis was not possible due to heterogeneity. Fifty-one studies assessing 42 interventions were retrieved. Interventions were categorised into thirteen groups: financial incentives (n = 11), recruiting rural students (n = 6), international recruitment (n = 4), rural or primary care focused undergraduate placements (n = 3), rural or underserved postgraduate training (n = 3), well-being or peer support initiatives (n = 3), marketing (n = 2), mixed interventions (n = 5), support for professional development or research (n = 5), retainer schemes (n = 4), re-entry schemes (n = 1), specialised recruiters or case managers (n = 2) and delayed partnerships (n = 2). Studies were of low methodological quality with no RCTs and only 15 studies with a comparison group. Weak evidence supported the use of postgraduate placements in underserved areas, undergraduate rural placements and recruiting students to medical school from rural areas. There was mixed evidence about financial incentives. A marketing campaign was associated with lower recruitment. This is the first systematic review of interventions to improve recruitment and retention of primary care doctors. Although the evidence base for recruiting and care doctors is weak and more high quality research is needed, this review found evidence to support undergraduate and postgraduate placements in underserved areas, and selective recruitment of medical students. Other initiatives covered may have potential to improve recruitment and retention of primary care practitioners, but their effectiveness has not been established.

X Demographics

X Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 34 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 314 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Spain 1 <1%
Canada 1 <1%
Unknown 312 99%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Master 48 15%
Researcher 31 10%
Student > Ph. D. Student 31 10%
Student > Doctoral Student 24 8%
Other 19 6%
Other 67 21%
Unknown 94 30%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Medicine and Dentistry 81 26%
Nursing and Health Professions 26 8%
Social Sciences 25 8%
Business, Management and Accounting 20 6%
Psychology 16 5%
Other 41 13%
Unknown 105 33%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 46. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 23 June 2023.
All research outputs
#854,628
of 24,476,221 outputs
Outputs from BMC Health Services Research
#209
of 8,272 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#15,422
of 306,042 outputs
Outputs of similar age from BMC Health Services Research
#5
of 92 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 24,476,221 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 96th percentile: it's in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 8,272 research outputs from this source. They typically receive more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 8.2. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 97% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 306,042 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 94% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 92 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 95% of its contemporaries.