Impact of a comprehensive health promotion curriculum on physician behavior and attitudes

Physician involvement with health promotion and disease prevention (HP/DP) is essential in the control of diseases in which behavioral risk factors are etiologically important. Yet physician involvement with health promotion is generally perceived as less than optimal. We report that an intensive, multifactorial curriculum introduced into a community hospital family medicine residency program increased physicians' use of preventive strategies with their patients and facilitated their use of specific, easy-to-follow protocols for the management of common problems amenable to health promotion.