Factors Associated with Physician Assistant Practice in Rural and Primary Care in Utah

Table 5

Predictors of rural/urban¹ practice.

Independent variable	𝑁=381*	OR (95% CI)	𝑃 value
Agea
21–30	51	1.00	—
31–40	136	0.98 (0.33–2.92)	1.012
41–50	86	1.18 (0.34–4.09)	0.848
51–60	76	1.48 (0.34–6.35)	0.674
61+	19	2.08 (0.31–14.0)	0.479
Genderb
Male	218	1.00	—
Female	150	0.26 (0.10–0.66)	0.005
Years of practice2,c
0–5	179	1.00	—
6–10	76	0.34 (0.12–0.97)	0.045
11–15	57	0.75 (0.24–2.29)	0.617
16–20	28	0.42 (0.09–1.87)	0.255
21+	28	0.21 (0.03–1.26)	0.089
Physician assistant school of graduationd
Non-Utah PA school	190	1.00	—
Utah	178	1.33 (0.67–2.65)	0.413
Location of upbringing3,e
Urban	62	1.00	—
Suburban	191	0.62 (0.23–1.67)	0.352
Rural	115	2.29 (0.89–5.85)	0.083

*After deleting missing cases for all predictor variables listed above (for logistic regression), 381 of the 432 total records were left for analysis.
¹Five Utah counties, Cache, Provo, Salt Lake, Weber, and Washington county: urban; all others are considered rural. Location based on practice address zip code.
² Years of practice: number of years since first license issue.
³Self-reported location of upbringing rural/suburban/urban.
Baseline category for comparison is: aage <31 yrs; bmale; c0–5 yrs of practice; dnon-Utah PA school graduate; eurban upbringing.