Dissemination of information about the US Preventive Service Task Force guidelines
S. A. Flocke, K. C. Stange and T. L. Fedirko
Department of Family Medicine, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH.
We assessed the familiarity of family physicians with the US Preventive
Service Task Force guidelines and targeted groups for interventions to
increase the practice of recommended preventive services. A national random
sample of 480 family physicians were mailed a survey consisting of
demographic items and a question regarding their level of exposure to the
guidelines. The association of demographic factors with the level of
exposure was assessed. Of the 263 responding physicians, 37% reported that
they had not read any of the recommendations. Physicians who had read at
least some of the recommendations were younger, more recently graduated
from medical school, less likely to be in solo practice, more likely to be
residency trained, and more likely to be white. Only year of graduation and
race remained significantly associated with exposure to the guidelines in a
logistic regression model. Additional dissemination efforts should focus on
solo practitioners, less recent graduates, and nonwhite physicians.
