Doctors' attitudes towards patient education in the primary care consultation

ONE hundred and six randomly selected general practitioners were interviewed about their attitudes to health education in primary care. There was a high level of motivation amongst general practitioners towards health education of their patients and yet honesty about the difficulties they encountered in carrying this out. Although 95 per cent agreed that patient education was important, and 61 per cent placed doctors' advice in the top three most effective methods of communicating health advice, 92 per cent had encountered practical difficulties involving poor doctor-patient communication. Seventy-six per cent of doctors highlighted lack of time as a barrier to providing more health advice for their patients and 54 per cent said that time constraints were a major difficulty in their practices. The implications of these findings are discussed and it is suggested that if, as proposed in the NHS Review, more health promotion activities are to be implemented by setting up special clinics (attracting a special fee), then the impact of health education messages in general practice will be reduced rather than enhanced.