[How do general practitioners promote a more equitable access for patient education?]

Our research is designed to understand how and under what conditions general practitioners contribute to equitable access to patient education (PE).We conducted a survey based on interactionist sociology in a sample of 32 doctors. These practitioners worked in the context of health networks and health care centres and were also involved in the PE resource centre for the Île-de-France region, thereby providing a favourable setting for our study, also reflected by the fact that one-half of practitioners were aware of the importance of or had been trained in PE.Doctors stress that their engagement in the patient-doctor relationship does not depend on the patient's psycho-social characteristics. Their educational practice nevertheless appears to be influenced by their a priori judgement of these characteristics. Based on their judgement, some clinicians develop practices that seem to promote better access for their socially underprivileged patients. This process is facilitated by several dynamics described in this article.The results of this research open up opportunities for office-based physicians and PE development structures to facilitate better access to PE for all patients.