title: Increasing physician involvement In cholesterol-lowering practices: The role of knowledge, attitudes and perceptions.
abstract: The study evaluated a multifaceted educational intervention systematically designed to increase physician involvement in cholesterol-lowering practices. We hypothesized that knowledge, perceptions and behaviours would be enhanced in participating physicians, compared with controls. Method: Fifty-one family physicians were assigned randomly to three groups; the two experimental groups attended a training workshop, received physician and patient education materials and ongoing consultant support. One experimental group also received a "cuing" intervention. The control group received no interventions. Outcome measures included knowledge and attitude scores, self-efficacy perceptions, and physician dietary counselling behaviour. Measures were taken at pretest, 6 weeks and 15 months later. Results: Intervention group physicians achieved significantly higher knowledge scores than the control group at the six-week test; the differences disappeared at 15 months. Attitudes, self-reported practices and overall self-efficacy scores were similar across groups. Within group variation was highly significant. Physician dietary counselling scores were significantly higher in the intervention groups (p = 0.0001). Some associations were seen among knowledge, attitude, self-efficacy and dietary counselling scores. Conclusion: Physician behaviour change in cholesterol reduction may not depend entirely upon knowledge, attitudes and perceptions.
authors.affiliation: Division of Medical Education, Clinical Research Centre, Room C-124, Dalhousie University, Halifax, N.S., Canada B3H 4H7; Fax No.: (902) 494-8884E-mail: Karen.Mann@Dal.Ca
authors.forename: K.V.
authors.initials: KV
authors.lastname: Mann
authors.forename: E.A.
authors.initials: EA
authors.lastname: Lindsay
authors.forename: R.W.
authors.initials: RW
authors.lastname: Putnam
authors.forename: D.A.
authors.initials: DA
authors.lastname: Davis