Determining the causes of discontinuation of family physicians working in Mashhad University of medical sciences

Introduction: The goal of health system reform in Iran is embarking on a series of continued changes for improving efficiency, fixing justice for people's use of health services, protecting people against financing dangers due to disease, and reforming payment system. Family physician program is selected as the base of health system reform. The aim of this study is to determining the causes of discontinuation of family physicians working in Mashhad University of medical sciences Methods: In this cross-sectional study 156 of family physician working in Mashhad University of medical sciences randomly selected and self-constructed Questionnaire completed for them. The statistical analysis was performed by using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences [SPSS version19]. Results: More than half of family physicians (59%) were female. about 80% of family physician ages being between 25 to 42 years. Mean age of family physician was 32.7 ± 6.06 years. About 82% of family physicians were married. The average work experience in family physicians was 16 months. The main reason of discontinuation of family physicians was; low salary (26.7%), effect of monitoring score on the salary (11.7%), and high responsibilities of the physician (9/9%). Conclusions: factor related to the salary and effect of monitoring score on the salary with more than 38% was the most important reason of discontinuation in family physicians. According result of this study the ministry of health and medical education must create dramatic changes in the physician payment.