What is the relationship between family physicians’ job satisfaction associated and their educational performance?

Introduction: Expansion of strong primary health care (PHC) network as a first revolution in Iran health system has led to significant improvements in coverage of the rural population and health indicators. Considering the development of rural health insurance and family physicians programs second revolution in 2004, in this study it was tried to determine the level of family physicians’ job satisfaction and its relationship with educational performance. Methods: All physicians who had worked as family physicians in public health care system of East Azerbaijan, Iran, between 2009 (December) and 2011 (May) were included in a cross-sectional study. The included population was composed of 367 primary care physicians. A self-administered, anonymous questionnaire was used to collect required information about job satisfaction. Educational performance scores of physicians were extracted from their educational profile in the medical faculty. Results: In this study, 149 questionnaires were analyzed from 238 retained questionnaires (overall response rate of 62.5%). The average score of job satisfaction was 41.84 (19.11) and the average educational performance score was 78.63 (6.66) out of 100. There was only significant relationship between gender, number of undercover population and job satisfaction while the results showed significant relationships between age and educational performance among personal and variables (P > 0.050). However, there was no significant relationship between job satisfaction and educational performance. Conclusion: The low level of job satisfaction and educational performance scores of family physicians indicating the urgent need for more extensive research in identifying the root and basic causes of this situation at first step. Second, finding the appropriate mechanisms to improve the job satisfaction level is great importance. We are proposing the revising of current policies, in payment methods and work condition, educational methods in existing health system