Patient counseling by general practitioners: Republic of San Marino's experience

General practitioners (GPs) can play a unique role in improving individual health behaviors. To maximize this role, it is important to know what health education activities GPs are performing and where improvements can be made. This article presents data covering a one-year period regarding the health education/counseling activities of GPs in the Republic of San Marino, which has a National Health Service. The overall rate of health education interventions is 8.8 per 100 GP contacts. The diagnosis having the highest rate of health education counseling is lipid metabolism disorders (50/100). Other diagnoses having high rates are: anxiety, depression, irritable bowel syndrome, and disorders of stomach dysfunctions/gastritis (42, 40, 36, and 33/100 respectively). The lowest rate within the top 17 diagnoses receiving health education is uncomplicated hypertension (11.4/100). The range of provider variation in performing health education interventions ranges from 1.2 to 24.1 per 100 patients contacts. Such analyses permit identification of the specific areas where GPs may need assistance for increasing the appropriate use of effective health education interventions so that further progress can be made in meeting the health needs of communities.