Le attitudini relazionali e psicosociali del medico di famiglia in Italia: indagine conoscitiva mediante un nuovo questionario A new questionnaire survey on relational and psychosocial attitudes of family physicians in Italy

Questionnaires capable of measuring the psychosocial orientation of physicians, in the sense not only of relating adequately with the patient, but also of a consideration of the patient as a person and of psychosocial aspects as possible determinants of health and disease, appear to be scarce in the literature. Materials and Methods: On the basis of the literature examined and of contents emerging from some interviews administered to family physicians, a self-report Questionnaire for the measure of psychosocial orientation of physicians was constructed. This was administered to 174 family physicians. Results: Exploratory actor analysis showed the presence of three factors, which were named: "Good Relationship with the patient", including items indicating the physician's capacity to feel at ease in the relationship; Confusive and Destabilizing Closeness", including items indicating on one hand the possibility of considering the patient as a whole person and of acknowledging the influence of psychosocial factors on health and disease, on the other a feeling of confusion around clinical judgement; "Technical Efficacy", including items referring to professional, technical efficacy. "Good Relationship with the patient" and "Technical Efficacy" appear significantly correlated. Conclusions: Resuts show the possibility for the Questionnaire to assess the quality of the doctor's h man relationship with the patient and of his/her sense of efficacy in clinical work; these two aspects appear correlated. Results show, on the other hand, a difficulty for the physician to envisage a psychosocial dimension in health and disease construction, since this view may eventually cause insecurity in respect to his/her capacities of clinical judgement.