Prevention Advice Rates of Women and Men Physicians
Erica Frank, MD, MPH;
Lynn K. Harvey, PhD
Arch Fam Med. 1996;5(4):215-219.
Abstract
Background
As the number of women in medicine and the emphasis on prevention and primary care increase in the United States, it is important to know the extent to which female and male physicians advise patients about prevention. It is also important to know whether any gender-based differences are attributable to women's higher rates of choosing primary care specialties. Prior studies have examined only small populations of physicians, limited physician specialties, or few prevention-related out
Methods
Telephone survey from a systematic random sample of the Physician Masterfile maintained by the American Medical Association. One thousand US physicians (167 women and 833 men); a 48% response rate. Self-reported frequency with which physicians review patients' health behaviors and initiate counseling about unhealthy behaviors.
Results
Of the surveyed physicians, 44% stated that they always reviewed the patient health behaviors in question, and 36% usually systematically counseled patients when unhealthy behaviors were known. Female physicians were significantly more likely than were male physicians to report systematic counseling about unhealthy behaviors (52% vs 37.8%, P<.001, X2). We also analyzed our data by adjusting for age and including only family and general physicians and internists. After these adjustments, gender-based differences remained in the direction of female physicians being more likely than male physicians to report reviewing patients' health practices and providing systematic counseling, although these differences no longer reached statistical significance. Genderrelated differences were greatest for more sensitive behaviors (ie, drug use and sexual behaviors). Primary care physicians were more likely than other physicians to review and counsel patients about health behaviors. This specialty-based difference was more significant among male than among female physicians.
Conclusions
In this random sample, although all physicians counseled patients inconsistently about prevention, female physicians reported systematically counseling patients more than did male physicians, and primary care physicians reviewed and counseled more often than did physicians in other specialties.
Author Affiliations
From the Department of Family and Preventive Medicine, the Department of Medicine, Emory University School of Medicine, and Emory University Rollins School of Public Health, Atlanta, Ga (Dr Frank); and the American Medical Association Department of Market Development and Opinion Research, Chicago, Ill (Dr Harvey). Dr Harvey is now with Greensboro (NC) College.
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