Abstract
As a crucial component of a health system, the shortage of health workforce could deteriorate health
outcomes. Though newly graduated physicians entering the rural areas every year, the turnover rate of
rural physicians was as high as 11% of rural physicians. It is thus crucial to explore strategies to attract and
retain physicians in rural areas. This study was a cross sectional study with 255 physicians serving in
years 1-3 from 9 provinces included in the sample. Job preference was assessed using the Discrete Choice
Experiment (DCE) method, which involved asking subjects to indicate their preference between 2 hypothetical
jobs, one rural and one urban. Each job was characterized by 7 job attributes. A total of 211 physicians
responded, with females (57.8%) responded slightly more than males. The majority of subjects was
from an urban background (83%), and graduated from a regional university (63%). There were 24% of physicians under the rural recruitment project. In relation to their job preference, all attributes were found
to be statistically significant in determining the decision to choose a job in a rural area. The results showed
that high salaries, workplace close to hometown, small hospital size, less overtime work, opportunities
for specialty training and faster career promotion were important for young physicians to choose rural
posts.
The results suggested that the combinations of salary increase, specialty training opportunities, reduce
overtime work, and accelerated promotions seem to be good policy candidates to attract and retain
physicians to rural areas.
