Competence of General Practitioners in Giving Advice about Changes in Lifestyle to Hypertensive Patients

Adam Windak, Barbara Gryglewska, Tomasz Tomasik, Krzysztof Narkiewicz and Tomasz Grodzicki
Additional contact information
Adam Windak: Department of Internal Medicine and Gerontology, Jagiellonian University Medical College, Krakow, Poland, mmwindak@cyf-kr.edu.pl
Barbara Gryglewska: Department of Internal Medicine and Gerontology, Jagiellonian University Medical College, Krakow, Poland
Tomasz Tomasik: Department of Internal Medicine and Gerontology, Jagiellonian University Medical College, Krakow, Poland
Krzysztof Narkiewicz: Department of Hypertension and Diabetology, Medical University of Gdansk, Gdansk, Poland
Tomasz Grodzicki: Department of Internal Medicine and Gerontology, Jagiellonian University Medical College, Krakow, Poland

Medical Decision Making, 2009, vol. 29, issue 2, 217-223

Abstract: Objective . The aim of this study was to assess the advice about lifestyle changes that general practitioners (GPs) gave hypertensive patients with different levels of cardiovascular risk. Design and Methods . A stratified sample of primary health care physicians in Poland completed a questionnaire consisting of 8 case vignettes that differed with regard to 3 major variables: 1) the level of blood pressure (high-normal blood pressure or grade 2 hypertension), 2) the presence of selected risk factors such as smoking and obesity, and 3) diabetes mellitus. The case vignettes were followed by a series of open questions. Results . The response rate was 65% (125/192 selected physicians responded). The mean age was 45.2 ± 8.1 years, and the average length of professional experience in primary care was 14.7 ± 9.3 years. For 1000 potential clinical decisions considered, all expected pieces of advice were given in 18.3% of situations, whereas in 11.5%, no advice concerning nonpharmacological treatment was provided. In 70.2% of situations, Polish primary health physicians gave incomplete advice. The average percentage of expected advice in all cases was 57.2% ± 30.8%. The presence of hypertension along with other risk factors of cardiovascular disease was associated with better quality advice ( P

Keywords: primary care; lifestyle advice; hypertension. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0272989X08324956 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:medema:v:29:y:2009:i:2:p:217-223

DOI: 10.1177/0272989X08324956

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Medical Decision Making
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().