Effective social marketing campaign can promote family medicine clinics utilization: An intervention trial

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Although it is well established that family medicine/primary care is the backbone of a successful healthcare system, family medicine clinics (FMC) services are still underutilized. Social marketing can be used as an effective approach to increase people’s awareness and change their attitude and behaviors related to primary care then promote service utilization. AIM: The objective of this study is to detect the causes of underutilization of FMC services and to study the role of a social marketing campaign on increasing the utilization of these services. METHODS: This is an experimental study where 1120 participants attending the primary health care center were interviewed pre-and post-campaign to assess the rates of FMC services utilization and the causes of underutilization. A 3 months social marketing campaign was held through internal and external marketing seminars then evaluating the campaign effect through service output indicators and comparing questionnaires’ results pre-and post-campaign. RESULTS: Underutilization of FMC services was caused mainly by the lake of knowledge about the presence of service (94.9%) and this decreased postcampaign to be (75.9%). The new patients attending the FMC increased from 61 to 2093, the frequency of weekly visits of the regular attenders increased by 32% and the number of new files opened post-campaign increased by 56%. CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION: Social marketing is a successful technique to increase the utilization of the services provided by FMC. According to the results, it is recommended to promote social marketing activities to increase awareness of the FMC services and improve its utilization.