The impact of family physician program on health indicators in Iran (2003-2007)

• Main Authors: Omid Barati, Mohammadreza Maleki, Mahmoodreza Gohari, Mohammadjavad Kabir, Mohmmadreza Amiresmaili, Zhale Abdi
• Format: Article
• Language: fas
• Published: Iranian Institute for Health Sciences Research 2012-06-01
• Series: Payesh
• Subjects: health indicators; family physician; vital horoscope
• Online Access: http://payeshjournal.ir/article-1-458-en.html

Objective(s): Family Physician” program has been launched since 2005 as a fundamental health plan in Iran. In spite of valuable information gathered through vital horoscope, only a few studies have been done in order to evaluate the performance of this program. So this research has been carried out to assess the impact of this program on heath indicators.Methods & Results: The research involved collecting data about 11 main health indicators extracted from the official annual report of the deputy for health from 2001 to 2006 and analyzing them through t- paired test in SPSS. Statistical analysis shows that the changes in 6 main indicators during these years including infant mortality rate (IMR), crude birth rate, under-5 mortality rate (U5MR), neonatal mortality rate (NMR), maternal mortality rate (MMR), and percentage of deliveries attended by unskilled persons were significant (P<0.05) and all of the above indicators have decreased during these years . Although other 5 indicators such as crude death rate (CDR), general fertility rate, percentage of deliveries in hospitals ,percentage of family planning coverage and still birth rate had an appropriate improvement during these years , their changes were not statistically significant (P>0.05).Conclusion: Findings indicates that there is an acceptable improvement in many of the health indicators since starting this program. But this does not mean that the other factors that might have affect on these indicators should not be considered.