Background:
Attitudes of doctors towards quality initiatives show us the effectiveness
of quality improvement in health care.
Aim:
The aim of this study was to explore the attitudes of family physicians
regarding quality issues.
Methods:
A cross sectional postal survey was conducted using an 35 item
self-administered questionnaire sent to 122 family physicians:
72 participants of workshop on Quality assurance recruited from
the mailing list of this workshop and 50 non-participants of this
workshop. The statements were written in bi-directional order
and the participants rated them on the 10 point Likert scale from
strongly agree to strongly disagree. The scores for the items
were calculated using 100 points as the highest positive answer
and 0 points as the lowest negative answer.
Results:
77 (63%) response rate was achieved. The quality concepts are
relatively well among Slovene family physicians (66 points). The
state of the art in quality filed was rated relatively low (56
points). Personal involvement in quality efforts were rated with
59 points. The participants of the workshop in 1994 Quality assurance
achieved significantly better results (63 vs. 51 points; p = 0,01).
The health policy plans regarding quality were rated very low
with 50 points. Rural physicians have higher confidence in the
health policy as their urban colleagues (54 points vs. 46; p =
0,02). The contribution of National health insurance institute
was rated very low (26 points), which is assigned only interest
in rationalising the health care expenditures, Ministry of health
follows with 34 points. On the opposite side of the scale there
is Department of family medicine getting 92 points. The participants
showed relatively high willingness to participate in quality improvement
endeavours (66 points).
Conclusions:
Family physicians are willing to improve quality of their daily
routines and expect support from the independent institutions
(Department of family medicine, Family medicine association) as
well from health care organisations and health care administration.
This organisations should take their part of the responsibility
in formulating and working in accordance with national and their
own quality policy.
