Primary health care reform in Saudi Arabia: progress, challenges and prospects

Abstract

Background: Saudi Arabia embarked on transforming its primary health care system in 2016 to meet international standards, gain the people’s trust and respond to the growing burden of noncommunicable diseases, as proposed in the Saudi Vision 2030. Aims: This review aims to highlight the progress, identify challenges and prospects for Saudi Arabia’s PHC reform process in order to make recommendations to facilitate strengthening of the PHC system. Methods: A review of previous studies and governmental reports was undertaken to extract, analyse, synthesize and report the findings. Results: The review has indicated that by mid-2019, the reform has contributed to an increase of 37.5% in the rate of PHC visits and 4.7% increase in patient satisfaction, enhanced coverage of rural communities (from 78% to 83%), and contributed to increasing the screening rate for prevalent chronic diseases. However, the country still faces gaps and challenges pertaining to human resources issues, cultural and lifestyle behaviour, geography, intersectoral collaboration and PHC infrastructure. Conclusion: PHC reform process in Saudi Arabia has demonstrated that positive change is achievable. This has been aided by building on previous accomplishments and the wealth of experience gained throughout the PHC journey in Saudi Arabia. However, despite improvement in the quality of services, continuous improvement is required to meet the rising expectations of the population.

Readiness to change among parents of overweight/obese children in Saudi Arabia and influencing factors

“…(2021) about the crucial role and responsibility of the primary health care physicians in modifying parental perception about childhood obesity. [ 19 ] The current study showed that the percentage of parents who had correct perception about the weight status of their children was significantly lowest among the parents of preschool children than older children, which could be attributed to what had been stated by Almoosawi et al . [ 12 ] who argued that the parents of toddlers and young children “might not consider their child to be overweight because he/she engages in physical activity, and they are not teased about his/her size, as long as there are no obvious health issues.” This argument was emphasized later by Ruiter et al .…”

“…[ 18 ] In this regard, Al Khashan et al . (2021)[ 19 ] asserted that primary health care physicians, being in the front line of health systems, are responsible for early detection of childhood obesity and increasing awareness of parents about the risks of obesity and how to prevent it.…”

Patient Satisfaction With Primary Healthcare Services in Al-Ahsa, Saudi Arabia

“…As of December 2021, the number of PHC centers within the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) was 2,121, 63 of which are in the Al-Ahsa region [ 15 ]. With the ongoing PHC reform plans, easier access to care including teleconsultation services through a toll-free number (937) as well as the SEHA Ministry of Health application, 6,500 and 1,500 daily teleconsultations are being offered, respectively [ 16 ]. These major reform plans are continuously evolving to meet the overgrowing expectations of the citizens.…”

Model Autonomy of Self-Finance Management for Primary Health Care to Enhance Workers’ Satisfaction

“…The implementation of public service reform is still experiencing obstacles, especially related to human resources, [1][2][3][4] including reforms in the autonomy of PHC in Indonesia, otherwise called RPSAPHC, 7 which were authorized for SFM. In this cross-sectional study, 29 PLS-SEMs were used to examine the suitability of the model of autonomous self-finance management in PHC to enhance workers' satisfaction.…”

“…This concept has shown improvement; however, public service reform still faces obstacles toward transformation processes; these obstacles are mainly related to human resources. [1][2][3][4] Human resources need to be considered as they play an important role in the success of operational management to achieve organizational goals. A previous study showed that threequarter of the respondents were dissatisfied with their working conditions.…”