ArticleBMC health services research2023
Village doctors: a national telephone survey of Bangladesh's lay medical practitioners.
Article in BMC health services research, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.
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3 citing papers in PubMed.
- Improving rural doctors' professional competence: effectiveness analysis of China's village doctors policy.Frontiers in public health · 2025Article
- Identification, mapping, and self-reported practice patterns of village doctors in Sitakunda subdistrict, Bangladesh.Journal of global health · 2024Article
- Beyond the regulatory radar: knowledge and practices of rural medical practitioners in Bangladesh.BMC health services research · 2023Article
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6 authors.
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Abstract
backgroundBangladesh outperforms its Least Developed Country (LDC) status on a range of health measures including life expectancy. Its frontline medical practitioners, however, are not formally trained medical professionals, but instead lightly-trained 'village doctors' able to prescribe modern pharmaceuticals. This current study represents the most complete national survey of these practitioners and their informal 'clinics'.
methodsThe study is based on a national Computer Assisted Telephone Interviewing (CATI) of 1,000 informal practitioners. Participants were sampled from all eight divisions and all 64 districts of Bangladesh, including 682 participants chosen from the purposively recruited Refresher Training program conducted by the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (ICDDR,B), supplemented with 318 additional participants recruited through snowball sampling. PRIMARY AND SECONDARY OUTCOME MEASURES: In addition to demographics, village doctors were asked about the characteristics of their 'clinics' including their equipment, their training, income and referral practices.
resultsThree quarters of the wholly male sample had not completed an undergraduate program, and none of the sample had received any bachelor-level university training in medicine. Medical training was confined to a range of short-course offerings. Village doctor 'clinics' are highly dependent on the sale of pharmaceuticals, with few charging a consultation fee. Income was not related to degree of short-course uptake but was related positively to degree of formal education. Finally, practitioners showed a strong tendency to refer patients to the professional medical care system.
conclusionsBangladesh's village doctor sector provides an important pathway to professional, trained medical care, and provides some level of care to those who cannot afford or otherwise access the nation's established healthcare system. However, the degree to which relatively untrained paramedical practitioners are prescribing conventional medicines has concerning health implications.
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