Abstract
Recently, certain factors have increased the importance of health policy training for medical professionals in Saudi Arabia, especially following the health care transformation initiatives. This study presents health policy course content that can be used as a foundational material for teaching health policy, and assesses needs regarding teaching health policy among medical professionals. Mixed methods, used in previous study, were used to achieve the study objectives. Pre- and post-workshop (8 workshops) questionnaires were developed to assess health policy knowledge among senior health care professionals, with a total 285 participants. A semi-structured interview with deans of medical colleges was used to assess their attitudes toward teaching health policy for medical professionals. Compared with the other groups, senior consultant physicians scored lowest (mean scores 2.75 among senior consultant physicians, 4.38 among other service professionals, and 5.75 among management professionals). However, after the workshops, knowledge levels were similar across all three groups. Also study finds agreement among medical college deans regarding the importance of teaching health policy throughout physicians' career path and disagreement among deans as to the appropriate professional level for such training. The study shows the importance of providing formal training on health policy during physicians' medical education. Thus, being an important part of society, the medical community at large should understand the societal complexities of health and thus integrating the subject of public health policy within medical curriculum program should be a welcoming step in this direction..