Evaluation of family medicine residents’ competency in ophthalmology patient care at primary health care settings

Objective: The aim of this study is to obtain the thoughts, knowledge levels and training needs’ of the family medicine residents in Ankara about ophthalmology. Also with this study, we aimed to raise awareness on this issue and guide the studies that aimed to promote standard care for ophthalmology patients. Methods: Between 01/04/2015-01/05/2015, we applied a questionnaire, developed by researchers to the family medicine residents who were working at a training and research/ university hospital in Ankara. We reached to the 200 family medicine residents to join to the survey but 196 of them completed the questionnaire. Data analysis was performed with SPSS 21.0 for Windows application. Results: Only 12.8% of the residents think that the ophthalmology training given in the medicine faculty is enough, but 54.1% of them disagree and 33.2% of them partially agree. It was found that the most common cause of inadequate training in medical faculty is lack of practice. 9.5% of the family medicine residents agree that the ophthalmology training given during the family medicine specialization training is enough but 67.5% of them disagree and 20.5% of them partially agree. Residents think that ophthalmology education in family medicine training is not sufficient because Ophthalmology rotation is optional in the curriculum. Conclusion: The curriculum of family medicine specialization training should include both practical and theorical trainings for the primary health care. In this context, compulsory and elective clinical rotations are an important part of specialization training. Only 9.5% of the participants agree that the ophthalmology training given during the family medicine specialization training is enough. It was thought that the results of the study will raise awareness on this issue and help the new studies about developing the approaches to the patients with eye diseases in primary care. J Clin Exp Invest 2015; 6 (4): 369-37