TASK PROFILES OF DISTRICT DOCTORS IN ESTONIA AND GENERAL-PRACTITIONERS IN FINLAND

Objective - To compare the task profiles of primary care doctors in tw o societies: district doctors in Estonia and general practitioners in Finland. Design - A uniform questionnaire was developed and used in 30 European countries in 1993 (The European Study of GP Task Profiles). The questionnaire was sent to a random sample of Estonian district doc tors and Finnish health centre doctors. Data from 139 respondents in E stonia and 239 respondents in Finland were obtained. Main outcome meas ures - Personal and practice information, proportion of doctors perfor ming certain medical procedures in their practices by themselves and b eing the first contact in relation to different problems. Results - Th e Finnish general practitioners (GPs) had more consultations per day, the Estonian district doctors made remarkably more home visits. Partic ipation in on-duty work was 82% among the Finnish and 22% among the Es tonian doctors. Most of the Finnish GPs worked by appointment, while t his was uncommon in Estonia. More than 80% of the Estonian district do ctors reported that they seldom or never performed the listed procedur es by themselves. In Finland, more than 80% of the respondents carried out the procedures almost always by themselves. Handling children's a nd women's health problems was more frequent in Finland than in Estoni a. The profiles of managing acute problems and problems of the elderly people were quite similar in both countries. The tackling of psychoso cial problems as the first contact showed lower performance in both co untries compared with somatic health problems. Conclusions - The task profiles of the Estonian district doctors and the Finnish GP5 differed considerably. The distribution of the Estonian doctors' answers gives evidence for the existence of specialization already within primary h ealth care where certain problems almost never reach the district doct or. The results of the present study supported the curriculum design f or the retraining of currently practising district doctors.