Screening practices of Israeli doctors' and their patients.
OBJECTIVE
Doctors' health matters because healthy physicians are more productive and because physicians' health practices affects their patient counseling habits, but there are few objective data on this topic.


METHODS
An examination of differences in screening quality health indicators between physicians (n=429) and 1621 age, gender, and socioeconomically matched patient controls from our district Health Maintenance Organization in Israel during the first half of 2008.


RESULTS
Doctors and matched patients had similar rates for low-density lipoprotein measurement (85%/84%=NS), colorectal cancer screening (23%/27%=NS), influenza vaccine among the chronically ill (23%/24%=NS), and mammography (for women, 55%/57%=NS). Doctors with hypertension had blood pressures clinically recorded considerably less frequently than matched patients do (56%/77%, p<0.001), and their smoking habits were recorded less often, but their recorded tobacco habits were significantly better. Physician-patient contrasts were also minimal (again except for clinician-recorded blood pressure and smoking) among the chronically ill.


CONCLUSIONS
These are the first objective data of which we know that test (and confirm) prior self-reported data that physicians' screening experiences are similar to patients'. Improving physicians' personal screening could also improve patient screening: physicians' self-reported primary prevention habits are considerably better than patients' and have been shown repeatedly to strongly and consistently positively influence patient counseling practices, and hence the health of the public.
Dresner
Yizchak
Y
Department of Family Medicine, Sackler Faculty of Medicine, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel.
Frank
Erica
E
Baevsky
Tuvia
T
Rotman
Eran
E
Vinker
Shlomo
S
D016009:Chi-Square Distribution; D003376:Counseling; D005260:Female; D015438:Health Behavior; D019538:Health Care Surveys; D006279:Health Maintenance Organizations; D006801:Humans; D007557:Israel; D008297:Male; D008403:Mass Screening / Q000379:methods / Q000523:psychology / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D008875:Middle Aged; D010353:Patient Education as Topic; D010361:Patients / Q000523:psychology / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D010820:Physicians / Q000523:psychology / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D010818:Practice Patterns, Physicians'; D011322:Primary Prevention; D019984:Quality Indicators, Health Care / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D012648:Self Care / Q000379:methods / Q000523:psychology / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors