Clinical competence of family physicians in systemic arterial hypertension

Objective. To establish clinical competence of family physicians to diagnos e systemic arterial hypertension and to analyze it's associations with some variables related to working conditions and; prior training. Methods. The clinical competence was established in a non probabilistic sample of 165 fa mily physicians working in 12 units of the Institute Mexicano de Seguro Soc ial (IMSS) in Mexico City. We used questionnaire of 160 items (true/false/d on't know) to evaluate clinical competence. Association of the scores were explored for work shift (morning/afternoon), working conditions (very favor able/favorable/little favorable/unfavorable) and having been trained in a f amiliar medicine residency of the IMSS (yes/no). Results. There were a gene ral low competence to diagnose systemic arterial hypertension (median score of 36 of a possible 160). There were associations of competence with more favorable working conditions (p = 0.005 Kruskal-Wallis test) and with havin g been trained previously (p = 0.0123 U Mann-Whitney test). Conclusions. Ou r results support the need to continue in this area of research to improve measuring instruments and to identify the modifiers of clinical competence to overcome the deficiencies detected in the present study.