FACTORS INFLUENCING THE TYPE OF HEALTH-PROBLEMS PRESENTED BY WOMEN INGENERAL-PRACTICE - DIFFERENCES BETWEEN WOMENS HEALTH-CARE AND REGULARHEALTH-CARE

Objective: Differences between health problems presented by women (age d 20-45) to female ''women's health care'' doctors and both female and male regular health care doctors were investigated. This article expl ores the relationship of patients' roles (worker, partner, or parent) and the type of health care, controlling for education, to the present ation of psychological, social, and purely somatic problems in general practice. Method: Data was derived from a ''women's health care'' pra ctice and twenty-one group practices providing regular care. The docto rs registered detailed information about all patient contacts during a three-month period. Logistic regression analysis was used in order to calculate the likelihood of women attending their doctor to present w ith psychological, social, or somatic health problems. Results: We fou nd that the effect of education was much stronger than the effect of r oles. Women attending women's health care presented more psychological and social problems and less somatic problems than women visiting reg ular health care doctors. Patients of female and male doctors providin g regular care did not differ in this respect between each other. Conc lusions: This study showed that patient characteristics, like roles an d education, are related to the type of health problems presented to g eneral practitioners. The type of health care was also important in ex plaining differences in the problems presented to them. Future researc h in primary care should include doctor characteristics to better unde rstand how these characteristics might relate to patient outcomes.