The effect of education given about home visits to family physicians on their information, attitude and skills

Home visits consist an important part of health care delivery. In this country, as well as the world as a whole, the demographic change of an ageing population becomes increasingly relevant making home visits more important. Nevertheless, if required, home visits can be made for all age groups. The reasons given by physicians 65 years ago with regard to home visits may differ today as medical practice has developed, and thus need to be explored. In Turkey, the provision of home visits is very small. This study will examine training at family practitioner level, in order to augment knowledge, skill and attitude aimed at making positive changes to the status quo. Our study is the first spesifically at this subject in our country. A survey in Burdur province of ASM?s involving 72 respondent family physicians (male: 54.3%, female: 18.1%) provided the enquiry with the current perceived level of knowledge. Face to face interviews in order to establish doctors? education was divided into two enquiries (n:37) and control (n:35) consisting of two groups. Having established the average knowledge base, a training field group was developed and their core skills were confirmed with an examination. The differences between independent groups were quantified by means of the "Chi-square test of Significance" as well as ?McNamara? statistical analysis. Our preliminary survey of physicians indicated that they are not adequately competent in the fulfilment of the requirements of the home visit. Improvements in education and skills amoung medical professionals has improved since making our first line of enquiry. As competence improves through education and vocational training, there has been a noticeable increase in a family physicians willingness to do home visits, something we had anticipated through our research. Physicians need to embrace a more positive attitude to fundamental changes in home visit practices and more comprehensive and practical trainings may help physicians for this point of view. Home visits before and after training were noticeably different at our study. Family physicians provision per head of population needs to reflect the number of population served, as well as a sensible pricing policy in comparison with other countries. Awareness of current advances in science and the reduction of legal constraints with regard to the provision of home visits must lead to standardization of provision, and a willingness to resolve associated security issues. What is evident from this research is that our country needs to work harder in order to provide a reasonable level of medical care to those people requiring home visits in the community. And more studies are needed at this area in our country.