Factors in recruiting and retaining health professionals for rural practice.

Context: Rural communities, often with complex health care issues, have difficulty creating and sustaining an adequate health professional workforce.

Purpose: To identify factors associated with rural recruitment and retention of graduates from a variety of health professional programs in the southwestern United States.

Methods: A survey collecting longitudinal data was mailed to graduates from 12 health professional programs in New Mexico.

Interdisciplinary health education and career choice in rural and underserved areas.

Purpose: To assess the association between an educational rural health interdisciplinary programme (RHIP) and subsequent practice in US rural and underserved locations.

Methods: We carried out a longitudinal cohort study of RHIP students and randomly selected classmate controls for the years 1990-2001, using a mailed survey.

Outcomes: Main outcome measures were first rural, any rural, first underserved and any underserved practice locations.

Occupational goals of mothers of children with disabilities: influence of temporal, social, and emotional contexts.

Objective: The purpose of this study was to describe the occupational concerns and goals of mothers who care for children with disabilities.

Method: Retrospective data collected from 38 mothers of children with disabilities using the Canadian Occupational Performance Measure (COPM) were analyzed qualitatively.

Results: Six themes emerged: (I) doing and being alone: taking care of my own health and well-being; (II) doing and being with others: expanding my social life; (III) improving my child's quality of life; (IV) household management: organizing time and resources; (V) balancing work, home, and community responsibilities; and (VI) sharing the workload.