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Abstract

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the virtual importance of identified barriers to preventive interventions and to explore the association between physicians9 characteristics and their attitudes towards prevention. METHODS: We conducted a cross-sectional survey of 182 randomly selected family and general physicians (164/182=90% response rate) from total of 385 general physicians from 5 health sectors of Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 2005. A pre-tested questionnaire asking physicians to rate the general importance of 8 preventive health strategies was used. RESULTS: The ranking of different preventive intervention varies from 124 (75.6%) for colorectal cancer screening to 155 (94.5%) for blood pressure control. Lack of time was rated an important barrier by 100 (61%) physicians, and lack of patient interest by 125 (76.2%) of physicians. There were 4 characteristics of physicians, which predicted negative attitudes toward prevention, sedentary lifestyle (odds ratio [OR] = 3.4, 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.1-11.1), lack of awareness of their own blood pressure (OR = 2.0, 95% CI, 1.0-3.9), lack of training (OR=2.2, 95% CI, 1.5-2.9), and lack of evidence of benefits (OR=1.98, 95% CI, 1.7-3.9). CONCLUSION: The influence of physicians9 own health behaviors and the importance of preventive intervention barriers, indicates a need for development of an approach to reduce the dominance of risky behavior.

Article Type

Research Article

First Page

1269

Last Page

1274

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