Objective: To measure medical care and pharmaceutical drug use among Swiss primary care physicians and its determinants.
Design: Cross-sectional mailed survey.
Setting: 1784 randomly selected Swiss primary care physicians, including general practitioners, internists and paediatricians.
Results: Twenty one percent (95% CI: 19 to 23) indicated having a regular doctor and 53% (95% CI: 50 to 55) reported at least one visit to a health professional in the preceding year. Sixty five percent (95% CI: 62 to 67) of the respondents had used pharmaceutical drugs during the preceding week, 34% (95% CI: 31 to 36) analgesics, 14% (95% CI: 12 to 15) tranquillizers, 6% (95% CI: 5 to 8) antidepressant and 13% (95% CI: 12 to 15) antihypertensive drugs. Among respondents reporting drug use in the past week, self-medication was reported in 90% (95% CI: 88 to 92) of the cases. In multivariate analyses, female sex, older age, higher work-related satisfaction and higher perceived stress were associated with more frequent visits to any health professionals; paediatricians reported more visits to primary care physicians, whereas women and physicians living alone reported more visits to mental health specialists. Reported use of analgesics was more frequent for younger physicians and general internists. Older physicians reported a higher use of tranquillizers, whereas physicians living alone reported higher use of antidepressants. Finally use of antihypertensive drugs was more frequent among men, older physicians, general internists and physicians with higher levels of work-related stress.
Conclusions: Swiss primary care physicians rarely have their own general practitioner and self medication is common with frequent use of analgesics and tranquillizers. Psychological distress due to increasing constraints on primary care doctors probably contributes to these behaviours.