Health Promotion Profile of Beliefs, Attitudes and Activities of Tennessee Primary Care Physicians

The primary purpose of this study was to develop a profile of selected health promotion beliefs, attitudes and activities of Tennessee primary care physicians. A secondary purpose was to identify physicians’ perceived need for training and support activities in health promotion on selected lifestyle behaviors.

This study was undertaken using a mail survey of 628 randomly selected primary care physicians practicing medicine in Tennessee. The target population was stratified on the basis of the following subgroups: specialty, population size of county, and state grand division in which they practice. Four hundred sixty-one questionnaires were returned resulting in a 73.4% response rate.

Analysis of the cross classified data took place busing logistic tests for multivariate discrete data. Analysis of the findings of this investigation led to the following conclusions:

1. Interspeciality differences exist among Tennessee primary care physicians with response to the frequency in which they gather information from their patients on smoking, alcohol, diet, and stress.

2. Significant interspeciality differences exist among Tennessee primary care physicians with response to their self-reported success in counseling patients on smoking and blood pressure.

3. Tennessee primary care physicians tend to agree that there is a need for information and training concerning health promotion in smoking, alcohol, diet, exercise, stress, and blood pressure.

4. Tennessee primary care physicians report that support and assistance would be valuable in helping patients with health promotion.

5. There is some evidence of a relationship between Tennessee primary care physicians' self-reported health behavior and self-reported success in counseling patients on smoking, alcohol, diet, exercise, stress and blood pressure.