DISEASE PREVENTION AND HEALTH PROMOTION - A STUDY OF MEDICAL-STUDENTSAND TEACHERS

All students at the Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine (n = 508) w ere surveyed on their self-reported smoking and drinking habits, attit udes to disease prevention and health promotion in general, attitudes towards the teaching of disease prevention and health promotion, and t heir perception of what was taught at the beginning of the 1993-1994 a cademic year (response rate 75.2%). The teaching staff (n = 271) were also surveyed on their attitudes towards the teaching of disease preve ntion and health promotion, and their perception of what was taught (r esponse rate 74.2%). Seventeen per cent of the students reported they were current smokers and 81% drank alcohol. Four factors were extracte d from the responses to the items on disease prevention and health pro motion in general and these represented the importance of health, a pa tient-centred approach, patient responsibility and a doctor-centred ap proach. Clinical students and those who were older were more likely to have a 'patient-centred' approach to disease prevention and health pr omotion. Sixty per cent of clinical and 44% of pre-clinical teachers a imed to teach about disease prevention and health promotion. The topic s reported by students as most likely to have been taught in detail ar e smoking and health, alcohol and health, immunization, and breast and cervical screening. However, all these topics were reported as having been taught in detail by less than 50% of the students. The majority of students and teachers believe that teaching about disease preventio n and health promotion should be integrated into all years of the curr iculum and all clinical firms. Teachers were significantly less likely than students to believe that students should learn more about diseas e prevention and health promotion, and that learning about prevention is as important as learning about diagnosis and treatment. We believe that, in order to build on the positive features highlighted in this s tudy, agreed aims and objectives should be developed and teaching abou t disease prevention and health promotion should be integrated both ho rizontally and vertically throughout the curriculum.