Attitudes and behaviors of physicians to colleagues in implementing quaternary prevention

Attitudes and Behaviors of Physicians to Colleagues in Implementing Quaternary Prevention Aim: When the patient is a physician, some special and difficult situations arise for the health care physician. Our study has been carried out to find out what these situations are. Material and Method: In this study, the questionnaires were applied to the physician of the research assistants of the internal and surgical departments who had contact with the patient during the diagnosis and treatment phase between the dates of 01.10.2018 and 31.12.2018 at İnönü University Faculty of Medicine. It was learned that 320 research assistants from faculty secretariat of Faculty of Medicine were working in internal and surgical departments. In the study, the integer was targeted but 81% (258/320) of the current population was reached. The data used in the research are summarized as median (min-max) and number (percentage). The conformity of numerical variables to normal distribution was investigated by Shapiro-Wilk test. Mann-Whitney U, Pearson chi-square, Years-corrected Pearson chi-square and Fisher's exact tests were used where appropriate. p <0,05 was accepted as statistical significance level. IBM SPSS Statistics 22 package program was used in the analysis. Results: A total of 258 physicians were included in the survey, 168 (65,1%) of the internal departments and 90 of the surgical departments (34,9%). The rate of the physicians who gave the physician who had a priority order according to the other patients was 92% in the internal departments and 100% in the surgical departments and the result was considered statistically significant (p = 0,005). In the study, the rate of those who didn't want laboratory / radiological examination was found to be 58% in the internal departments and 71% in the surgical departments when the physician knew that there was no need for the patient but the results were considered statistically significant (p = 0,043). Conclusion: In this study, it was observed that physicians exhibited attitudes and behaviors that are sensitive about quaternary prevention. In addition, the fact that evidence-based medicine is taken into consideration when establishing diagnostic guidelines of clinical specialties will be an important step in preventing patients from harm due to excessive medical intervention. Key Words: Overdiagnosis, overtreatment, quaternary prevention.