Performance and Retention Intention Rates of Order-oriented Medical Students in China: a Meta-analysis

Background In order to change the shortage of general practitioners in primary care, China has been implementing a rural order-oriented medical student training program in 2010. Currently, the overall performance intention, performance situation and retention intention of order-oriented medical students in China still remains unclear and need to be supported by more reliable evidence. Objective To systematically evaluate the performance intention rate, actual performance rate and retention intention rate of order-oriented medical students in China and analyze its influencing factors. Methods From January to June 2022, CNKI, Wanfang Data, VIP, PubMed and Embase databases were searched to collect literature related to service intention, performance intention and retention intention for primary care of order-oriented medical students in China with a time period from 2010 to 2021, and the language of the literature was limited to Chinese and English. Two investigators independently screened literature and extracted data independently to evaluate the risk of bias of the included studies. Meta-analysis of single-group rates was performed using RevMan 5.4 software. Results A total of 49 papers were included with a survey period of 2010-2020, involving 22 413 order-oriented medical students. The performance intention rate of order-oriented medical students was 62% [95%CI (55%-69%) ], the performance rate was 95% [95%CI (93%-96%) ], the retention intention rate was 16% [95%CI (13%-19%) ]. The results of subgroup analysis showed that the performance intention rate of the literature published in 2011 [90%, 95%CI (84%-96%) ] was higher than the other years (P<0.01), the performance intention rate was higher in North China [87%, 95%CI (84%-90%) ] than the other regions, the performance intention rate of college students [68%, 95%CI (67%-69%) ] was higher than the residents in standardization training (P<0.01) ; the performance rate of the published literature in 2020 [99%, 95%CI (99%-100%) ] was higher than the other years (P<0.01), and the performance rate [100%, 95%CI (99%-100%) ] in Central China was higher than the other regions (P<0.01) ; the retention intention rate of the literature published in 2015 [36%, 95%CI (2%-70%) ] was higher than the other years (P<0.01), the retention intention rate [23%, 95%CI (4%-41%) ] was higher in South China than the other regions (P<0.01), the retention intention rate of the college students [18%, 95%CI (13%-22%) ] was higher than the residents in standardization training and primary care providers performing contracts (P<0.01) . Conclusion The actual performance rate of order-oriented medical students in China is high, but the performance intention rate and retention intention rate are low. Region, time and medical education stage are the influencing factors.