ABSTRACT
Primary healthcare (PHC) services have been available in the Kingdom of Bahrain for more than 40 years. These services were provided by non-specialised general practitioners within primary healthcare centres across the country. Currently, within the Ministry of Health, a research committee, with a sub-committee for PHC, has been established. The main objectives of these committees are to increase the awareness of the medical staff about the importance of research, encourage them to do research, provide help and assistance to those interested, supervise the research quality and ensure that related ethical issues and patients' safety are taken care. Once the residents graduate from the Family Practice Residency Program, they are appointed as family physicians (FPs) in the PHC centres that are distributed around the country. FPs who are engaged in research and have published papers are promoted to FP specialists and receive priority for attending conferences. Such action has helped in increasing the number of published research articles from Bahrain.
