Huisartsgeneeskunde: aantrekkingskracht en beroepstrouw ... - Lirias

64 Making General Practice Attractive: Encouraging GP attraction and Retention KCE Reports 90
The sequence of themes in the interview was designed to ‘guide’ the participants
through their personal history and help them reflect upon elements that influenced their
decision to stop working as a GP. Following themes were addressed:
• motivation to choose medicine/general practice (to get an idea of the
personal context),
• expectations regarding the GP profession and experiences and feelings
during training and as a trained GP,
• decision making process to stop working as a GP,
• current profession (because factors related to the new profession
could play a role in the decision to stop working as a GP).
At the end of the interview, we also explored participants’ suggestions to prevent young
GPs from quitting their profession.
To ensure not to miss the topics identified in the literature whilst not steering
participation, the interviewer went over a topic list at the end of the interview session
(see appendix 4.1. and 4.2.). They were invited to briefly comment on it, when they felt
necessary.
The initial interview guide was developed in Dutch and subsequently translated to
French by the French-speaking interviewer. This draft version was adapted after
feedback from the steering group and after one pilot interview in Flanders After piloting
the French version minor corrections were made (words, omitting a question
duplicating and previous question). The remaining interviews were performed following
the final version (see appendix 4.1 and 4.2 for the interview in both languages).
4.3.2 Participants
All presidents of the Flemish regional bodies of GPs and FAG (Forum des Associations
de Généralistes) were requested to list colleagues who left their GP profession in the
past 5 years. Using this method we were able to collect 30 Flemish speaking and 45
French speaking potential candidates.
From this group of 75 GPs, 16 Belgian former GP’s (8 in each language) were
interviewed, 3 men and 13 women, aged between 30 and 44 years. Their practice
experience ranged from 1 to 14 years and they left the profession between 6 and less
then 1 year. (see appendix 4.3.)
The selection of these participants was based on the following criteria:
• participant not (much) older then 40 (we focus on the group of GP’s in
their first 10 years of practice),
• has worked as a general practitioner, so excluding doctors working
only part-time along some other day time job,
• did not stop practicing more the approximately 5 years ago (so reasons
for quitting are still clear in their mind),
• allowing a mix of new careers, because factors related to the
attractiveness for these could play a role in the decision process to
stop work as a GP.
Of the 75 potential candidates, 54 former GPs answered to these criteria and were
asked to participate by telephone. Eighteen GPs could not be reached (wrong contact
data, no reply). One GP was abroad and 2 GPs refused to participate because of a
serious illness. Seventeen did not return the phone call and were not contacted again
because the target number of 16 GPs was reached.
4.3.3 Interviews
After one pilot interview the interviewers agreed on the final version and on interview
strategies. Two researchers (LS, CD) conducted the interviews. We allowed the