Aims: To describe the preventive care attitudes, beliefs, priorities and systems of Canterbury general practitioners, to compare their beliefs about appropriate care with evidence-based guidelines and to investigate possible associations between preventive care beliefs and attitudes, and selected practitioner variables.
Method: A questionnaire was mailed to all 375 general practitioners in Canterbury, with a response rate of 70%.
Results: Respondents expressed positive attitudes to preventive care, their views about appropriate care corresponding well to United States Preventive Services Task Force recommendations. The responses of practitioners who had qualified more recently were closer to the recommendations, with these practitioners more likely to want to carry out more preventive care. Membership of an independent practice association or the Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners was associated with more positive attitudes to preventive care and with believing more interventions to be appropriate. Relatively few preventive interventions appeared to be offered to patients in a systematic way.
Conclusions: Canterbury general practitioners were well-informed about, and interested in carrying out, more preventive care. Preventive care delivery could be enhanced in many practices by the adoption of a more systematic approach.