Evaluation of the knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors of family physicians working in primary care in tokat province regarding common dermatological diseases

The aim of our study is to evaluate the knowledge, attitudes and behaviors of family physicians working in primary health care services in Tokat province towards common dermatological diseases. The universe of the study consists of family physicians working in primary health care services in Tokat province between July 2024 and October 2024 and whose data were obtained through an online cross-sectional descriptive survey method based on volunteering. The sociodemographic data form prepared to determine sociodemographic characteristics, the survey form examining the approaches of family physicians towards common dermatological diseases and the test form consisting of 14 visual questions created to measure their knowledge levels were applied online and constituted the data source of the study. The statistical analysis of the obtained data was performed using the SPSS 22.0 program. Cases where the P-value was below 0.05 were considered statistically significant. 104 family physicians working in primary care participated in our study. Among the participants, 70 general practitioner family physicians (67.3%) received an average score of 9.07±1.98 from the 14-point knowledge level questions. The average score of 20 participants (19.2%) who were contracted family physician assistants was determined as 10.65±1.87, and the average score of 14 participants (13.5%) who were family physician specialists was determined as 11.21±1.88. 67.3% of the physicians who participated in our study stated that they found the dermatology practical training provided in medical schools insufficient and mostly used supportive resources when writing prescriptions. In this context, we believe that increasing the dermatology practical training in medical schools, making the rotations during the residency more efficient, and providing in-service training on common dermatological diseases to physicians working in primary care would be beneficial. Keywords: Primary care, Dermatology, Family Medicine