A COMPARISON OF US AND CANADIAN FAMILY PHYSICIAN ATTITUDES TOWARD THEIR RESPECTIVE HEALTH-CARE SYSTEMS

OBJECTIVES. TO examine how family physicians in the United States and Canada evaluate their respective health-care systems. METHODS. The stu dy design was a cross-sectional survey of 300 randomly selected US fam ily physicians and 300 Canadian family physicians. Outcome measures in cluded: attitudes about professional satisfaction and views on health- care delivery and government involvement in health care. RESULTS. Sixt y-one percent of the US sample and 67% of the Canadian sample responde d. After performing factor and discriminant analyses, we were able to identify nine characteristics differentiating the two groups of physic ians. United States physicians were more likely to be older, male, wor king in rural areas, conservative in their political thinking, and sat isfied with their ability to obtain diagnostic tests. United States ph ysicians viewed the health-care system as being in need of fundamental changes, less likely to advocate a central role for government, and m ore likely to report that litigation concerns influence their clinical decisions. CONCLUSIONS. This study documents differences between Cana dian and US family physicians, and suggests that US family physicians might not easily accept a Canadian-style health-care system. Policy ma kers implementing health-care system changes should be cognizant of th e attitudes of physicians that might determine their acceptance or rej ection of such changes.