Research productivity in Australian general practice: what has changed since the 1990s?

The Primary Health Care Research, Evaluation and Development (PHCRED) Strategy aims to improve Australia's output of high-quality research from primary care. We compared publication rates from general practice, medicine and surgery for the period 2000-2007, and found that general practice publications increased since 1990-1999 from 1.0 to 3.0 publications per 1000 general practitioners per year. However, general practice publication rates have plateaued since 2000, and represent only 2%-5% of the equivalent rates for medicine and surgery. This finding suggests that more time and sustained investment in PHCRED are essential to see tangible outputs from funded research in general practice.