The evaluation of primary care physicians' knowledge on common respiratory diseases: an online survey of primary care physicians in China

Aim: To assess primary care physicians’ knowledge level of asthma, CAP, COPD and influenza in China and then to improve the relative training courses based on the findings.Method: An e-questionnaire was distributed to attendees of respiratory diseases academic conferences for primary care across 29 provinces or cities in China from July, 2017 to December, 2018. The targeted population was primary care physicians working in county-township and community hospitals.Results: The feedback rate was 100%, including 4815 valid questionnaires, 3802 (79.0%) from community hospitals and 1013 (21.0%) from county/township hospitals. The average score of the questionnaire was 74.47(±21.287), which was 39.2% of the whole questionnaire(74.47/190), 83.31(±20.397) (43.8%,83.31/190) and 72.12(±20.898) (38.0%,72.12/190) in county-township and community hospitals (P＜0.05), respectively. 61.4%, 48.7% and 42.5% of the primary care physicians were aware of clinical manifestations of COPD, asthma and simple influenza. 85.7%, 8.1%, 16.1% and 1.0% knew how to diagnose COPD, asthma, CAP and influenza, respectively. 94.4% of the physicians didn’t know bronchodilators for COPD; 53.7% knew the non-pharmacological treatments for COPD. 73.6% were unable to deal with asthma attacks. 65.1% didn’t know what the most essential and important treatment for influenza was. 92% physicians didn’t know the management for stable COPD; 3.0% knew the prevention and management measures for asthma. 37.9% knew the preventive measures for CAP. 44.9% didn’t know the important role of influenza vaccine in preventing influenza and its complications. Conclusion Primary care physicians in China had a poor knowledge on asthma, CAP, COPD and influenza, but county-township hospitals physicians had a better knowledge than community hospitals physicians. Implementation Science/Service Development Research Ideas on Respiratory Conditions and Tobacco Dependency Abstract Declaration of Interest The authors declare no conflicts of interest. This study was funded by the Capital Fund for Development of Health Research (2018-2-4075), CAMS Innovation Fund for Medical Sciences (CIFMS)(2018-I2M-1-001) and National Key R&D Program of China(2016YFC1303900). References and Clinical Trial Registry Information