Development of an instrument to identify attitudes of family practice and other physicians: a pilot study

Research has shown that characteristic attitudes can be attributed to certain medical specialties and can affect specialty selection. The purpose of this study was to develop an attitude scale that would discriminate between family practice and other physician groups on current health care issues. From a sample of 490 randomly selected physicians, 40 percent (N = 193) responded to the study instrument, a 44-item, five-point Likert scale in which physicians were asked their level of agreement on various statements. One-way analyses of variance were performed on responses to each item by family centered nature of practice and specialty. Ten statements were found to significantly differentiate physicians who were family centered from physicians who were not family centered. Statements showed that family centered practitioners were confident in their competence and in their role as an essential medical practitioner. They also expressed more awareness of a patient's response and total well-being. Responses also suggest that there is acknowledgement of supposed family medicine issues by all physicians.