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Doctors' knowledge of socio-legal aspects of patient care
S J Benbow1, D King, J A Barrett
1Department of Geriatric Medicine, Royal Liverpool Hospital.
The British Journal of Clinical Practice
|January 1, 1992
Abstract:
Doctors' knowledge of socio-legal aspects of patient care is poor. To quantify this a questionnaire on certain socio-legal topics was sent to 400 general practitioners and 250 hospital doctors. The responses were compared to a group of social workers. Both hospital doctors and general practitioners did badly on all topics considered. Social workers' knowledge was significantly better overall, (P < 0.01). Our results confirm the lack of knowledge amongst a broad spectrum of doctors. We suggest that this may be related to a lack of emphasis on these aspects in both undergraduate and postgraduate education.