Barriers to Reporting Notifiable Diseases Among Primary Health Care Physicians at Al Wazarat Primary Health Care Center, Riyadh: A Cross- Sectional Study

Vollständiger Abstract

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Timely notification of notifiable diseases enables investigation and outbreak control, yet reporting remains incomplete in many settings. This study assessed reporting practice and perceived barriers among primary health care physicians at Al Wazarat Primary Health Care Center, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. A cross-sectional, self-administered questionnaire adapted from a Bahrain instrument was analyzed. All 103 responses were included. Barrier prevalence was summarized with Wilson 95% confidence intervals (CIs). Reporting compliance was defined among physicians who unequivocally reported diagnosing a notifiable disease during the preceding three months. Exact conditional tests, exact trend tests, Fisher’s exact tests, and nonparametric tests were used. Of 103 physicians, 33 unequivocally diagnosed a notifiable disease; 26 reported it, yielding 78.8% compliance (95% CI 62.2–89.3) and 21.2% nonreporting (95% CI 10.7– 37.8). A reconciliation sensitivity analysis produced 81.6% compliance (31/38). The leading barriers were insufficient time (42.2%; 43/102), diagnostic uncertainty (32.0%; 33/103), absent feedback (26.2%; 27/103), confidentiality concerns (18.4%; 19/103), and an impractical procedure (16.8%; 17/101). Reporting increased across age groups (exact omnibus p=.028; exact trend p=.008) and experience groups (p=.040; trend p=.025). Men endorsed more barriers than women (median 2 versus 1; Mann–Whitney U=1487, p=.037), although no individual gender comparison remained significant after false-discovery-rate correction. Reporting compliance was high, but one in five eligible physicians did not report. Workflow time, diagnostic support, feedback, confidentiality guidance, and procedural simplification should be prioritized. The small number of nonreporters precluded multivariable modeling, so associations require confirmation in larger multicenter studies.