OBSTACLES ENCOUNTERED WHILE DEALING WITH EMERGENCY CASES BY PRIMARY HEALTH CARE PHYSICIANS IN CLUSTER 1 RIYADH CITY, KINGDOM OF SAUDI ARABIA

Background: The frontline primary healthcare centers (PHCCs) are regularly visited for different medical problems, ranging from minor situation to emergency cases. The frontline primary healthcare centers (PHCCs) are regularly visited for different medical problems, ranging from minor situation to emergency cases. Therefore, analytical cross-sectional study was conducted to assess nature of encountered acute medical emergencies, self-perception and competencies of PCH physicians dealing with them, and, sufficiency of the required PHCCs equipment in hospitals of Riyadh. Methodology: This cross-sectional study enrolled all the physicians in governmental PHCCs, Ministry of Health (cluster 1) Riyadh city during the study period. The study was conducted using modified previously validated online accessible questionnaire. Online questionnaire was distributed across the selected Primary health care centers in Riyadh by submitting it to PHC manager to distribute to all PHC physicians during study period Results: In this study, we were able to collect 206 responses for our questionnaire among primary healthcare physicians. Among these physicians 58.8 % were aged between 25-35 years old and 55.3 % were females. We found that the percentage of PHC physicians who will attempt to perform the assessed skills for all patients did not exceed 30%. The least cases seen by physicians were cardiac arrest, acute GIT bleeding, anaphylaxis and acute vaginal bleeding which never seen during the last year by 83.1 %, 72.8 %, 70.9 % and 68 % of participants respectively. Conclusion: The current study showed that emergency services at the PHC level in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia are not functioning reasonably in some terms. Therefore, the services need to be perfected, and defects revealed by the current study should be taken into consideration hand-in-hand with available resources to upgrade the quality of the emergency services provided at PHC centers in Riyadh.