Doctors and patients alike do not take good care of their health
When it comes to a healthy lifestyle, most doctors adhere to the principle of "Do what I say", not "Do as I do".
According to the results of a national survey conducted by specialists of the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, healthcare workers do not differ from other Americans in 10 out of 13 factors that determine a healthy lifestyle.
The data collected in the survey were processed using a multivariate model that takes into account age adjustments, age squared (in statistics, this indicator is used to model a nonlinear effect), gender, race, residence in a certain state, education, income level and employment. Since the survey participants did not indicate their professions, no distinction was made between doctors, nurses, nurses and other employees during the analysis.
The three factors for which the doctors differed for the better were physical education, as well as denial of drinking a lot of alcohol and participating in drunkenness during the previous 30 days.
As for the analyzed preventive procedures, doctors more often than other Americans had personal therapists and underwent preventive examination during the previous two years. On the other hand, medical women were no more likely than women not employed in the healthcare sector to have taken a Pap test for early detection of cervical cancer during the previous 3 years, visited a dentist during the previous year and ever underwent a rectoromanoscopy/colonoscopy procedure.
At the same time, female medical staff aged 50 years and older were significantly more likely than other women of the same age to have mammogram results completed during the previous 2 years.
An interesting fact is that medical staff without higher education often had a personal doctor.
The researchers concluded that health care workers adhere to the principles of a healthy lifestyle to varying degrees, but in general they did not differ from other Americans in this regard.
At the same time, they note that all the information collected in the survey was obtained from the words of the respondents and may not be reliable enough.
Article by Helfand et al. Healthcare and lifestyle practices of healthcare workers: Do healthcare workers practice what they preach? published in the journal Archives of Internal Medicine.
Evgeniya Ryabtseva
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru
21.12.2012