A study of preventive health attitudes and behaviors in a family practice setting.

Preventive health care has been identified as a major function of the family physician. The ability of the family physician to significantly affect the preventive health status of a patient and his/her family is largely dependent on the preventive health attitudes and health care practices of the patient. This preliminary study identifies some of the attitudes towards preventive health and reported health care practices of a sample of patients in a model family practice unit. The authors found that social position was significantly associated with assessment of personal health, attitudes towards preventive health practices, and attitudes toward the preventive function of the physician. While the majority of the study population was willing to spend time to obtain preventive health care services, the same population was almost evenly divided about their willingness to spend extra money to obtain these services. The physician was cited as the most frequent source of health care information by respondents in this study.