Development and Application of a Motivating Factors Evaluation Scale for Family Doctors in China

Background: To establish a reasonable incentive mechanism for family doctors (FDs) and increase their work enthusiasm, it is necessary to evaluate the incentive status of FDs. At present, there is no scale evaluating motivating factors for FDs. This study aims to develop and validate an instrument to evaluate the status of FD incentives. Methods After a literature review and panel discussion, the initial evaluation tool of family doctor motivating factor was formed. A questionnaire survey was conducted among 4988 FDs from 135 community health centers (CHCs) in 8 districts of Beijing. SPSS 26.0 and M-plus 8.0 were used to carry out item analysis, exploratory factor analysis (EFA), confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), and reliability evaluation of the data, and the developed scale was used for empirical research to evaluate the incentive level of FDs in Beijing. Results The scale included 18 items in 4 dimensions: incentive payment, individual development, work values, and the organizational environment. The variance explained by the four common factors was 83.78%. The results of the EFA and the CFA proved that the questionnaire had good validity. The Cronbach’s alpha for the total scale was 0.979. There were differences in FD incentive levels by region, age, educational level, professional title, working years, and employment method. Conclusions The family doctor motivating factor evaluation scale has good reliability and validity and can effectively evaluate motivating factors among FDs. The scale evaluation results show that the motivation of FDs with different demographic characteristics in Beijing is different in terms of incentive levels.