What do General Practitioners Think About an Online Tailored Self-regulation Programme for Primary Prevention

Abstract

Background: General practitioners (GP’s) can positively affect patients’ behavioural choices. But often GP’s report a lack of time and of standarized approaches which may hamper preventive counselling. Therefore a tablet based eHealth programme based on self regulation was developed for general practitioners (GP’s). In order to adjust this programme to the needs of GP’s, focus group interviews were conducted. Methods: Focus group interviews were conducted in which the determinants for the use of the proposed eHealth programme were discussed. Data were collected from a sample of eight local consultation groups of GP’s. In total, 50 GP’s participated in the focus group interviews. After the researcher gave a short presentation of the new programme, open-ended questions were used to address the opinion of the GP’s to the content and to the use of the proposed programme. The focus groups interviews were audio-taped and transcripted. These transcripts were thematically analysed via NVivo software. Findings: GP’s reported the need for a primary prevention method that people can use to effectively change their health behaviour. The majority of GP’s were positive about the use of self-regulation in a programme. However they also had some concerns about the delivery method in general practice. The majority of GP’s wanted different ways of delivery. The use of ehealth tools was considered as a good method, but not for all patients. According to the participating GP’s, the programme is not suitable for people with low education or for older people. Discussion: Self-regulation is a preferred method for ehealth programmes in general practice. The delivery method should exist of a combination of approaches (tablets, flyers and a website). In order to know if the intervention is also suitable for low SES and older people, a piloottest is needed.