Educational needs of family physicians in the domains of health and conformity with continuing education in Fasa University of Medical Sciences

of planning. According to the family physician’s idea, evaluatingprograms in order to improve them is one of the necessities ofpromoting quality and increases the efficiency and effectivenessof continuing education. This study aimed to determinefamily physicians’ educational needs regarding health and itsapplicability in continuous medical education in Fasa Universityof Medical Sciences.Methods: In this cross-sectional study, viewpoints of 45 generalphysicians working at Fasa University of Medical Sciences in2013 were studied. Samples were selected through census. Datacollection was done using a researcher-made questionnaire using10-point Likert scale and a checklist with Delphi technique.Content validity of the questionnaire and its reliability wereconfirmed by the experts’ opinion and Cronbach’s alpha of 80%.The data were analyzed through SPSS software version 16, usingboth descriptive and inferential statistics (mean and standarddeviation, standard score (SQ), t-test, ANOVAs). A significancelevel of <0.05 was considered.Results: The highest educational priority was in the field ofmental health (SQ=0.38), and environmental and professionalhealth was the lowest priority (SQ=_0.24). Additionally, withineach of the areas above specific priorities were determined. Basedon the results of this study, gender, graduation date, cooperationtime, and university they were educated in did not affectexpressing educational needs (p>0.05). The most educationalconformity with continuing education was in the diseases area(topic 27%, content 37%). In the areas of environmental andprofessional health and health education, compliance was zero.Conclusions: The physicians stated that mental health was thefirst educational need and environmental and professional healthwas the last one. According to the results, proper continuingmedical programs should be coordinated with educational needs.Keywords: Needs assessment; Physicians; Family; Health; Education