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- Title
Preferences and barriers to the utilization of primary health care by sick physicians: a nationwide survey.
- Authors
Zacay, Galia; Baron-Epel, Orna; Malatskey, Lilach; Heymann, Anthony
- Abstract
<bold>Background: </bold>Physicians are often dissatisfied with their own medical care. Self-prescribing is common despite established guidelines that discourage this practice. From a pilot study, we know primary care physicians' (PCP) preferences, but we lack information regarding other specialties and work places.<bold>Objectives: </bold>The goal of this study was to examine whether physicians are satisfied with their personal primary care and how this could be improved.<bold>Methods: </bold>We distributed an electronic survey to all physicians registered with the Israeli Medical Association. The questionnaire examined satisfaction with medical care, preferences for using formal care versus informal care, self-prescribing and barriers to using formal care.<bold>Results: </bold>Two thousand three hundred and five out of 24 360 invited physicians responded. Fifty-six per cent of the respondents were satisfied with their personal primary care. Fifty-two per cent reported initiating self-treatment with a medication during the last year. Five and four per cent initiated treatment with a benzodiazepine and an antidepressant, respectively, during the last year. This was despite the fact that most physicians did not feel competent to treat themselves. Having a personal PCP was correlated with both a desire to use formal care and self-referral to formal care in practice. Regression analysis showed that the highest odds ratio (OR) for experiencing a large gap between desired and actual care were for physicians who had no personal PCP (OR = 1.92).<bold>Conclusions: </bold>Physicians frequently engage in self-treatment and in informal medical care. Whether the root cause is the health care system structure that does not meet their needs or the convenience of self-treatment is not known.
- Subjects
MEDICAL care use; PRIMARY care; PHYSICIANS; MEDICAL personnel; MEDICAL care; PILOT projects; RESEARCH; ATTITUDE (Psychology); RESEARCH methodology; MEDICAL cooperation; EVALUATION research; PRIMARY health care; COMPARATIVE studies; MEDICAL referrals
- Publication
Family Practice, 2021, Vol 38, Issue 2, p109
- ISSN
0263-2136
- Publication type
journal article
- DOI
10.1093/fampra/cmaa090