Health behaviors, health definitions, sense of coherence, and general practitioners’ attitudes towards obesity and diagnosing obesity in patients

INTRODUCTION: Physicians’ attitudes towards health may influence the motivation of patients for constructive health behaviors. The purpose of this study was to evaluate general practitioners (GP) attitudes towards health and to determine factors affecting diagnosis of obesity in their patients. MATERIAL AND METHODS: We examined 250 GPs. The average age was 53.55 ±10.57 years. We used methods examining: health behaviors (IZZ), the sense of coherence (SOC-29), the individual meaning of health (LZK), and attitude toward obesity (own questionnaire). RESULTS: The predominance of pro-health behaviors was found in 31.9% and anti-health behavior was observed in 24.6% of the examined group. Health was most commonly defined as a state (74%). The most common criterion of health was “self-acceptance” (38%). A high level of coherence was seen in 39% of individuals. A relationship between the sense of coherence and seeing health as a process (p < 0.01) and target (p < 0.05) was found in this study. We also found a relationship between the doctor’s attitude towards obesity and his internship, area of residence, number of hours spent at work during the week and bodey mass index. It was found that taking the body weight and waist circumference measurements from patients depends significantly on the results from SOC-29 (p = 0.05) and IZZ (p = 0.05). CONCLUSIONS: Polish GPs are a diverse group in terms of health behavior, defining health, sense of coherence and attitude towards obesity. High sense of coherence and the manifestation of healthy behavior are factors that favor the diagnosis of obesity in patients by the GP.