Abstract
Objective. The aim of the study was to explore patients’ beliefs about the importance of lifestyle and preventive services, to assess their readiness to make changes in diet and physical activity and their willingness to receive support from
The study was done in 22 European countries, in 10 practices per country, with each 40 patients aged 30–70 years. The interview period was September 2008 to September 2009. The analysis was based on, 7947 participants (52.2% females and 47.8% males).
More than half of the patients think their lifestyle is important for their health: eating habits 53%, physical activity 55% and normal body weight 59%. Almost half of the patients think they have to improve their lifestyle in terms of eating behavior (43%), physical activity (48%) and body weight (48%). More than half of the patients say they have plans to change, and two-thirds say they are confident to succeed. Two-thirds of the patients say that they would like to receive support by their GP. About half of patients reported that initiated a discussion about these topics.
This study raises a good deal of health promotion and prevention issues of interest for primary health care providers. There is a discrepancy between the expectations of patients and the performance of A high proportion of patients who visited primary care with unhealthy lifestyles do not perceive and about half of the patients reported not having any discussion on these topics with GP's or primary care team.
Behavioral risk factors such as smoking, poor nutrition, at-risk alcohol consumption and physical inactivity are the main preventable risk factors for chronic conditions which account for >60% of the overall global burden of disease now and expected 80% by the year 2020.1 Clinical prevention, including lifestyle advice and screening for cardiovascular risk factors, is an important and positive component in the daily practice of all family doctors/GP's.2 Two-thirds of the population visit their GP at least once per year and 90% at least once in 5 years. Therefore, primary health care is a suitable setting for interventions to reduce behavioral risks factors and recommend preventive activities.3,4
However, differences in the structure and organization of practice in European countries are associated with a large variation in the degree of involvement of GP's in preventive activities.5
A survey among >2000 European GP's showed a significant gap between GP's knowledge and their practice in the use of evidence-based recommendations for health promotion and disease prevention in primary care.6
Several international studies showed an overall lack of emphasis on prevention7 and that patients are infrequently reminded of important lifestyle-related risk factors and that some patients are unaware of their unhealthy lifestyles.8,9 For preventive program in general practice to succeed, patients' points of view must be taken into account in addition to those of GP's.10
Therefore, European Network for Health Promotion and Prevention in General Practice/Family Medicine conducted a study, as follow-up on the survey in 2005 on the views of GP's on prevention.6 The aim of this study was to explore patients’ beliefs about the importance of lifestyle and preventive services, to assess their readiness to make changes in diet and physical activity and to assess their willingness to receive support from GP's.
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