Measuring general practitioners' attitudes towards medical care

The construction and development of a questionnaire which measures the attitudes of general practitioners towards their role in the medical care system is described. Factor analytic procedures identified seven reliable factor-based subscales. The subscales measured attitudes towards: a psychological orientation to patient care, government involvement in the health care system, preventive medicine, patient participation in the consultation, communication with patients, responsibility for decision making and the appropriateness of consultations. The responses of 387 randomly selected Australian general practitioners to this measure are described. Overall, there was strong support for the importance of fostering patient participation, facilitating open communication and understanding, having a psychological orientation, and implementing preventive activities in general practice. However, the sample was strongly opposed to a government regulated health care system. Age and sex of the general practitioner were shown to influence orientations on some dimensions.