Tabriz Family Physicians Survey on the Social Determinants of Health in referring patients and the role of Social Prescription in helping them to treat these patients in 1398

Abstract

There is no study in Iran among Family Physicians (FPs) regarding the relative frequency of Social Determinant of Health (SDH) related problems in their patients and also delivering social prescribing (SP) by FPs.

Methods. The sample was all FPs who work in rural and urban areas of Tabriz county’s Health Center at least since three years ago (134 physician). A questionnaire was designed and its face and content validity and also its reliability was confirmed. The questionnaire has two section: the first one include 11 questions about SDH and 6 general questions about SP. The second section includes two questions about 15 types of SP for patients with physical diseases and mental diseases separately. The data was analyzed using SPSS version 21 and calculating 95% confidence interval of mean, paired t test and independent sample t test.

Results: The questionnaire was completed by 112 FPs (response rate: 83%) which 72 of them work in urban and 40 of them work in rural area. Based on their response, most of their patients had SDH related problems. If Ministry of Health supports SP financially, the FPs,on average, want to prescribe 8 out of 15 types of SP for more than 50% of their patients with physical diseases . They also wanted, on average, to prescribe 12 out of 15 SP types for more than 50% of their patients with mental diseases. “Participation of Patients in Stress & Angry Management Class” had the highest mean among 15 type of SPs: On average, FPs wanted to prescribe it for 82% of their patients with mental diseases and for 76% of their patients with physical diseases. In both section of the questionnaire the mean of FPs responses regarding patients with mental diseases was significantly higher than their responses regarding patients with physical diseases.