The role of general practitioners' working style and brief alcohol intervention activity

ABSTRACT Aims To examine correlates of general practitioners’ (GP) activity delivery of brief alcohol interventions to patients with particular reference to their ‘working style’. Design A postal questionnaire survey. Setting and participants All 75 GPs in the Community Primary Health Care Centre of the City of Tampere, Finland. Measurements Measures of working style classifying GPs into ‘problem solving’ versus ‘technological’, self‐reported brief advice activity and other demographic details. Findings and conclusions Of the respondents (response rate 85%) 45% (29/64) reported carrying out brief alcohol interventions. Male GPs provided brief interventions more often than female GPs (71% versus 36%, P = 0.017). The respondents had mainly positive attitudes to brief interventions for excessive drinkers. The working style typology did not show any relationship with brief intervention activity.