ATTITUDE OF FRENCH GENERAL-PRACTITIONERS TO THE PUBLIC-HEALTH SURVEILLANCE OF COMMUNICABLE DISEASES

Background. The attitude of general practitioners (GPs) to public heal th surveillance is not well documented, even though they furnish essen tial information, in particular for sentinel surveillance among the ge neral population. Methods. The attitude of 560 French GPs to the surve illance of 17 communicable diseases was researched. Half the GPs bad p revious experience in public health surveillance and the other half di d not. Their motivation for belonging to a public health surveillance network and some of their demographic characteristics were also invest igated. Their attitude was compared with an objective evaluation of pu blic health surveillance priorities, based on 10 criteria. Results. Pr imarily, GPs are interested in the surveillance of uncommon and seriou s diseases (HIV infection, tuberculosis, meningitis), and/or preventab le ones (viral hepatitis, flu' syndrome, measles, sexually transmitted diseases), which coincides with the choices made by public health dec ision makers. The age of the GPs, their type of practice (urban/rural) , and their participation (or not) in a surveillance network modify th eir priorities: in general the GPs' perception of the risks to which t heir patients may be exposed influences their choice of which diseases should be subject to surveillance in general medicine.