Primary medical care and coping with stress and disease: the inclination of primary care practitioners to demonstrate affective behavior.

A study carried out among a sample of Israeli primary care practitioners ascertained that doctors are less inclined to demonstrate affective (humane) than instrumental (medical treatment) behavior toward patients. Data ascertain the contradiction between these components of behavior which is inherent in the primary care practitioner's frame of reference. Affective behavior, in the doctor's frame of reference, constitutes to a great extent both an impediment to medical performance as well as a possible threat to his dominance. Family medicine is not an exception in this case; in fact, it rather aggravates the contradiction between affective and instrumental behavior, and the threat to the family practitioner's dominance is even stronger. Data allude that only the enhancement of the practitioner's profit may further his inclination to demonstrate affective behavior. The importance of this study has to be understood in the light of accumulating evidence stressing the importance of the practitioner's affective behavior in alleviating anxiety and possible promotion of recovery.