Preventive medicine: physician practices, beliefs, and perceived barriers for implementation

Despite increasing recognition of the need for physicians to practice preventive medicine, there is much evidence that performance is well below the ideal recommended by experts. The purpose of this study was to determine what preventive medicine activities physicians practice, whether their personal health practices and beliefs about preventive medicine correlate with professional practices of preventive medicine, and what barriers to practicing preventive medicine physicians identify. Results from a questionnaire mailed to a random sample of 430 family physicians indicated physicians practice health promotion for themselves more than revealed in earlier studies and that physicians frequently incorporate many preventive medicine activities into their professional practices. Several exceptions, however, were noted. When identifying barriers to practicing preventive medicine, respondents overwhelmingly selected lack of patient motivation more than any other factor.