Positive attitude of citizens towards general practitioners

Summary

Introduction:
Little is known about how patients and lay population perceive general practitioners (GPs), how they evaluate and recognize them. Therefore the General Practice Society committee has made a decision to add few specific questions in a representative sociologic survey performed by Agency INRES.

Aims and methods:
The aim of the survey was to explore attitudes of people towards GPs and their performance, towards their role in mediating a specialized care, a journey through the health care system and towards their competences. An attention was paid to waiting times for specialist consultations, to pharmacies with regards to prescriptions administered by GPs, to a possible extension of prescribing competence of GPs and to OTC shopping in pharmacies.

The survey was designed as an independent sociologic one. The field work was done using a standardized guided interview among interviewer and respondent. SASD 1. 4. 10 was used for statistical analysis.

Results:
The survey showed a high level of patient satisfaction with GPs, with their availability and the way how they refer patients to specialized care. A majority of people would prefer GPs to prescribe medicaments otherwise limited only to specialists. Generic replacement in pharmacies is more frequent in seniors and low educated people and in bigger cities. The OTC market is growing with an impact on a clinical management.

Keywords:
attitudes of people towards GPs – mediating a specialized care – OTC shopping