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Alcohol and Alcoholism Advance Access published online on July 25, 2005
Alcohol and Alcoholism, doi:10.1093/alcalc/agh185
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© The Author 2005. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Medical Council on Alcohol. All rights reserved
Received March 3, 2005
Accepted June 2, 2005

Article

ATTITUDES OF SWEDISH GENERAL PRACTITIONERS AND NURSES TO WORKING WITH LIFESTYLE CHANGE, WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO ALCOHOL CONSUMPTION

MAGNUS GEIRSSON 1*, PREBEN BENDTSEN 2, and FREDRIK SPAK 3

1 Norrmalms Health Center, Skövde, Sweden
2 Faculty of Health Sciences, Department of Health and Environment, Division of Social Medicine and Public Health Science, University of Linköping, Sweden
3 Department of Social Medicine, Institute of Community Medicine, The Sahlgrenska Academy at Göteborg University, Göteborg, Sweden

* To whom correspondence should be addressed.
MAGNUS GEIRSSON, E-mail: magnus.geirsson{at}vgregion.se


  Abstract

Aims: To explore the attitudes of Swedish general practitioners (GPs) and nurses to secondary alcohol prevention (early identification of, and intervention for, alcohol-related problems) and compare it to their attitudes to other important lifestyle behaviours such as smoking, stress, exercise, and overweight. Methods: An adjusted version of The WHO Collaborative Study Questionnaire for General Practitioners was posted to all GPs and nurses in the County of Skaraborg, Sweden; 68 GPs and 193 nurses responded. Results: The importance of drinking alcohol moderately, counselling skills on reducing alcohol consumption and perceived current effectiveness in helping patients change lifestyle behaviours ranked lower than working with all the other lifestyle behaviours. The nurses rated their potential effectiveness in helping patients change lifestyle higher than that of GPs for all the lifestyle behaviours. Nurses receiving more alcohol-related education had more positive attitudes than nurses with less education. For alcohol, the GPs assessed their role adequacy, role legitimacy and motivation higher than that of the nurses. The main obstacles for the GPs to carry out alcohol intervention were lack of training in counselling for reducing alcohol consumption, time constraints, and the fact that the doctors did not know how to identify problem drinkers who have no obvious symptoms of excess consumption. Conclusion: GPs and the nurses estimated their alcohol-related competence as lower than working with many other health-related lifestyles. These results can be explained by lack of practical skills, lack of training in suitable intervention techniques, and unsupportive working environments. All these elements must be considered when planning secondary alcohol prevention programs in primary health care.


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