[Generalized self-efficacy in relation to anti-health behaviours of general practitioners exemplified by smoking]

The purpose of the present work is to make an assessment of generalized self-efficacy of general practitioners and to investigate its relationship with socio-demographic factors and undertaking risky behaviours taking smoking as an example. The participants of the research encompassed 500 general practitioners aged 27-75 living in Poland. The participants' level of generalized self-efficacy was measured first, then, the relationship between generalized self-efficacy, socio-demographic variables and GP's attitudes towards smoking was investigated. The averaged level of GP's generalized self-efficacy was 29.425 +/- 3.64, which is within high referential values. There have been statistically significant relationships between self-efficacy and sex of the participants (men achieved higher scores than women). There have been no significant differences found in the perception of self-efficacy in terms of age and marital status. Statistically significant relationships between generalized self-efficacy and smoking were found only with general practitioners addicted to smoking and smoking every day (in this group, the GSES score was 29.34; SD = 3.60, while in the non-smokers' group the score is significantly higher and is 31.19; SD 4.23). When implementing protective actions related to smoking special attention needs to be devoted to the psychological resources stimulating pro-health activity, including generalized self-efficacy.