[Diagnosis and treatment in general practice. 4. General practitioners' knowledge of their patients]

The object of this work is to describe aspects of general practitioners' knowledge of their patients and to analyse the connection between this knowledge and certain activities involving the patients in the practice (examination in the practice, prescription of medicine, information and referral). Fifty-five practices with a clientele of 81,600 patients in the lower income group of the Danish National Health Insurance over the age of 15 years participated. A random sample of 1/30 of the insured persons were characterized by the practice prior to a period of observation of three months on the basis of the doctors' knowledge of the persons. During the period of observation, all practice-patient contacts were registered. The characteristics of the patients included: curation of attachment to the practice, degree of knowledge, previous problems etc. Contact data included information about diagnoses, symptoms, patient's wishes, prescriptions, referrals, information given and examinations in the practice. During the three months, a total of 1,974 episodes of medical care occurred. We did not find any connection between the duration of knowledge (as a measure of knowledge) and the number of abovementioned activities in the practice. This investigation, however, cannot exclude such a connection. Information is still required to illustrate the significance of the knowledge of the patients for the solution of their problems and, in particular, for the course of their health problems.