Smoker GPs finding trouble practicing what they preach

Most male GPs are somewhat overweight and do not engage in physical exercise on a regular basis, a study conducted among 297 medical practitioners has found.

And although 74% of GPs never smoked, 11% are active smokers while 16% used to smoke in the past.

The study by Mario Saliba, Mario Sammut, Kristin Vickers and Neville Calleja, published in the Malta Medical Journal, was carried out to assess GPs’ willingness to spend time discussing, educating, assisting, advising, or providing resources to patients regarding health behaviours.

According to the study, a third of GPs participating in the study reported difficulty in counselling patients on behaviours that they struggled with themselves.

“It is evident that GPs who followed healthy lifestyles were more eager to counsel patients about health behaviour counselling,” the study says.

Most of the GPs believed that counselling in health behaviour-change in primary care is very important. They even believe that they should be role models for their patients as regards health behaviour.

Lack of time and training were the major barrier to counselling for most of the doctors interviewed.

Surprisingly, more than 20% of the doctors interviewed mentioned the lack of financial reimbursement as an obstacle to health behaviour counselling.

According to the authors of the study, this could be an indication that doctors think they are not paid enough and that they need to be reimbursed extra for counselling because it is extra work that is not part of the consultation.

“Doctors should be trained in motivational interviewing, which are important in helping patients recognise the need for a change in their health behaviours,” the authors say.