Level of agreement between physician and patient assessment of non-medical health factors.

Background GPs need to consider assorted relevant non-medical factors, such as family or work situations or health insurance coverage, to determine appropriate patient care. If GPs' knowledge of these factors varies according to patients' social position, less advantaged patients might receive poorer care, resulting in the perpetuation of social inequalities in health. Objective To assess social disparities in GPs' knowledge of non-medical factors relevant to patient care. Methods Observational survey of GPs who supervise internships in the Paris metropolitan area. Each of the 52 enrolled GPs randomly selected 70 patients from their patient list. Their knowledge of five relevant factors (co…

Are primary-care physician practices related to health behaviors likely to reduce social inequalities in health?

Abstract Our objective was to examine patients' health behaviors and the related practices of their primary-care physicians to determine whether physicians' actions might help to reduce the social inequalities in health behaviors among their patients. Fifty-two general practitioners, who were also medical school instructors in the Parisian area, volunteered to participate. A sample of 70 patients (stratified by sex) aged 40–70 years was randomly chosen from each physician's patient panel and asked to complete a questionnaire about their social position and health behaviors: tobacco and alcohol use, diet, physical activity, and participation in breast and cervical cancer screening. Each phys…

Factors associated with GPs' knowledge of their patients' socio-economic circumstances: a multilevel analysis.

A paraître; International audience; Background. To determine appropriate management for individual patients, GPs are supposed to use their knowledge of the patient's socio-economic circumstances.Objective. To analyse factors associated with GPs' knowledge of these circumstances.Methods. Observational survey of GPs who were internship supervisors in the Paris metropolitan area. Each of 52 volunteer GPs completed a self-administered questionnaire about their own characteristics and randomly selected 70 patients from their patient list. Their knowledge was analysed as the agreement between the patients' and GPs' responses to questions about the patients' socio-economic characteristics in quest…

Les pratiques préventives des généralistes sont-elles de nature à réduire les inégalités sociales de santé ?

Time and feasibility of prevention in primary care

BACKGROUND Prevention is an essential task in primary care. According to primary care physicians (PCPs),lack of time is one of the principal obstacles to its performance. OBJECTIVE To assess the feasibility of prevention in terms of time by estimating the time necessary to perform all of the preventive care recommended, separately from the PCPs and patient's perspectives, and to compare them to the amount of time available. METHODS A review of the literature identified the prevention procedures recommended in France, the duration of each procedure and its recommended frequency, as well as PCPs' consultation time. A hypothetical patient panel size of 1000 patients, representative of the Fren…