Attitudes and Barriers of Point of Care Ultrasound Implementation among Primary Health Care Physicians In KSA, Eastern Province 2019-2020

Abstract

Background: Point of care ultrasonography (POCUS) refers to a limited ultrasound protocol performed by a clinician at a patient’s bedside.     POCUS is being described as the stethoscope of the future . It is a tool that progressively being integrated into the family physician’s toolbox.

Methods: The sample will include a total of approximately 440 physicians. Out of them, 128 physicians from Al Dammam Sector, 98 physicians from Al Qatif sector, 72 physicians from Al Khobar sector, and 142 physicians from the family medicine training residency program. 

Our findings were limited to governmental PHC physicians and did not include the private sector.

Results: The physicians in this study were general practitioners (163 = 40.6%), family medicine training residents (154 = 38.4%), family medicine specialists (50 = 12.5%), family medicine consultants (34 = 8.5%). The physicians were from three different sectors in the eastern province; Qatif sector 142 (35.4%), Dammam sector 154 (38.4%), Khobar sector 105 (26.2%)61.3% of physicians have got POCUS training, most of them have obtained the training within two years or more. While 38.7% didn’t get any training at all

Currently, around 15% of the physicians are using POCUS in their practice, 85% are not using POCUS in their practice. After appropriate training, 83% of the physicians were willing to use POCUS and introduce it into their practice.

Conclusions: study revealed that approximately 83% of PHC physicians were willing to use POCUS and introduce it into their practice as they thought the availability of equipment, hands-on training, bedside teaching, and collaboration with other specialties were most important requirements to implement POCUS in PHC. In addition, the lack of training was biggest barrier to adopt POCUS in PHC, followed by unavailability of ultrasound machines and the equipment, lack of knowledge and inability to interpret ultrasound images. Finally, there was a statistically significant association between physician's attitude, requirements to implement POCUS and barriers in adopting POCUS in clinical practice.