Background: We wanted to investigate to what extent Norwegian general practitioners (GPs) working within a patient list system have patients who they are legally incompetent to treat, what services they offer these patients, and what attitudes a representative sample of the GPs has towards situations where one is asked to offer services to such patients.
Material and methods: A questionnaire was sent to 622 randomly chosen GPs. We registered sex, age, list size, size of the local community and health region for every practice. For eight hypothetical situations, we recorded whether the doctor clearly, probably or hardly would offer services.
Results: About one quarter of the doctors had their spouses and own children below 18 on their list. Many had secretaries or colleagues on the list. From 18% to 31% of the doctors confirmed that they have prescribed reimbursable prescription drugs to one such patient. There were great variations in views on legal competence to treat in these hypothetical situations.
Interpretation: GPs encounter problems of legal competence to treat. Many were of the view that a pragmatic approach is needed in day-to-day general practice. GPs should be aware of their own practice and aware of both legal competence problems and other challenges induced by having family, close friends and co-workers on the list.