Background
: Recently, reinforcement and innovation of primary care has been propeled and family doctor registration program has been proposed as one of the solutions for the problem. The aim of this study was to understand the Korean population's perception concerning the need of the family doctor registration program.

Methods : The study subjects included 865 adults from 16 different cities who were applying for health insurance. The interview for study subjects was performed by 53 nurses during 3 months. The questionnaire was composed of questions eliciting general information about the subject, subject's perception on the necessity and the role of family doctor registration program, and on regarding services offered by the family physician.

Results : Seventy seven percent of the respondents were in favor of the family doctor registration program. The most importantly considered benefits of the program were medical examination, stress management, and management of chronic diseases. Sixty one percent of the respondents preferred internists as their family doctor, where as 42 percent preferred a family physician. Most people thought it was reasonable to pay 120,000 won per year as a registration fee. Services thought to be necessary by respondents were medical examination for family members, telephone call counseling, and physician's home visit.

Conclusion : The results revealed that 77 percent of the subjects responded favorably towards the family doctor registration program. The most importantly considered benefits of the program were medical examination, stress management, and management of chronic diseases.

Background
: The purpose of this study was to assess the quality of primary care by patient-completed questionnaire, and to investigate whether the results of the assessment were different among the specialties of doctors (especially family medicine) and according to the existence of a family doctor.

Methods : The questionnaire, which covers 7 components of primary care (accessibility, continuity, accountability, comprehensiveness, integration, sustained partnership with patients, whole person orientation), was administered to the applicants of health screening center of a university hospital, and factory workers in Cheonan, and residents living in Seoul. Statistical analysis was performed through the collected samples.

Results : Total of 574 subjects were analyzed. The mean score (%) of each component of the total sample was as follows; accessibility 45.8, continuity 47.8, comprehensiveness 22.5, accountability 55.5, integration 41.8, sustained partnership with patients 48.9, and whole person orientation 31.8. The mean score (%) of all components were 42.0. Doctors were classified into internists, general surgeons, family physicians, general physicians, and others. Family physicians had the best score in accessibility (P=0.01). The mean score of all components of family physicians was better than that of internists and the other specialties (P＜0.05). The number of respondents who had family doctors was 129 (22.5%). The mean score of each component was higher than those without a family doctor (P＜0.05).

Conclusion : Family physicians are providing high quality primary care compared to internists and other specialists. Patients who have a family doctor are provided with higher quality primary care than those who do not. Especially, comprehensiveness and whole person orientation need to be improved.

Background
: Recently, many countries including Korea have been trying to enforce and reform their primary care system. The Family Doctor Registration Program(FDRP) which Korean government had tried and failed in 1996. continuously has been being highlighted because of it's importance. Several private family practitioners started grass root movement for conduction FDRP voluntarily. This survey aimed to know the willingness for private family practitioners to participate in voluntary FDRP and it's major services.

Methods : By mailing, the self-administered questionnaire were collected two times during May 20 to June 30 in 1998. The questionnaire contained following : demographic and practice related factors, willingness to participate FDRP, factors related to it's major services. Subjects were 496 private family physicians who had acquired the certification since 1989. Analyses were made by the Chi-square test, t-test, and multiple logistic regression analysis.

Results : Though overall response rate was only 44.8%(222/496), but age and sex distributions of respondents were similar to those of the total study subjects. The percentage of those having a willingness to participate in voluntary FDRP('Y' group) was 58.6%. The 'Y' group showed phone counseling frequence of 3.2(±2.6) times per day. They had much more home visiting experience than 'N' group(62.2% vs 44.9%, P=0.0019). After the conduction of FDRP. the frequency of possible night-time phone duty per month was 3.5(±2.6) times, and the frequency of possible home visiting per week was 1.9(±1.4) times in 'Y' group. After multiple logistic regression analysis on the meaningful variables, male(OR=2.25, P=0.027) rather than female, percentage of child patients<40%(OR=2.526, P=0.0149) rather than that>60%, and having home-visiting experience(OR=1.8, P=0.1131) rather than no experience showed relatively higher tendency of participation in voluntary FDRP.

Conclusion : The results of this survey should be reflected into the health care policy when retrying to implement FDRP in Korea.

Background
: Since the Independence in 1945, the Republic of Korea(ROK) has maintained fundamentally the liberal health care system by the influence of U.S.A. Therefore, as in the case of U.S.A., the primary health care system of ROK has fallen in the chaos. Recently, the new government of ROK seems to retry the introduction of 'Family Doctor Registration System(FDRS)' in spite of the 1996's failure. In order to conduct FDRS efficiently, there should be a thorough investigation on the opinions of doctors and people in the community. This study was conducted with a view to collecting necessary information regarding the implementation of FDRS.

Methods : By mailing, the self-administered questionnaires were collected twice during March 18 to May 12 in 1998. The questionnaire had been prepared trough several discussions, pretest, and final correction by five family physicians and two health care policy professors. The subjects consisted of 2,093 family physicians.

Results : Though the overall response rate was only 28.2%(591) subjects, age distribution for the study subjects was similar to that of average family physicians. The subjects consisted of 451 males and 138 females. The number of those whose age was less than 40 was 49.9%(195). 'The group that agrees with the introduction of FDRS' was 58.5% of all respondents; 'the group that objects' 14.4%; and 'the group undetermined' 24.7%. The 73.6% of all respondents had negative opinion on increased administrative work. Only 21.3% expected their net income to increase. On multiple logistic regression analysis, relatively large city rather than metropolitan Seoul, the smaller number of visiting patients a month, regular resident training experience, and male sex resulted in having a significant positive relationship with the introduction of FDRS. Further analyses are called for to identify differences of opinions between family physicians and single specialty medical practitioners

Conclusion : The results of this survey should be reflected into the health care policy when retrying to implement FDRS in Korea.