Familiarity of rural people engaged in rural assurance towards principles, facilities, and conditions of rural assurance in family physician (FP) program in northern provinces of Iran - 2008

National program of family physician (FP) and rural assurance was started in rural and urban area with populations less than 20,000 people in 2005 according to 91st act of 4th development program. This survey was performed to evaluate knowledge of people having rural assurance about facilities they can take benefit, principles, and conditions of this assurance in FP program in northern provinces of Iran. This cross-sectional (descriptive - analytic) study was performed in autumn 2008 in rural and urban areas with populations less than 20,000 people at the universities of Golestan, Mazandaran, Babol and Guilan (43 districts). Data were collected by questionnaire and analyzed by Chi-square and Kendall's Test using SPSS. In this study, among 1081 person involved in rural assurance, the level of knowledge for 33 person (3%) with rural assurance was high, for 416 person (38.5%) was medium and for 632 (58.5%) was low. There was a significant relationship between sex, age and education level and level of knowledge. There was no significant relationship between marital status, inhabitancy, job and the provinces (universities in this study) and level of knowledge. In general, the knowledge of people engaged in rural assurance about principles, facilities, and conditions was low. Therefore it is necessary to perform educational programs.