What is the prevalence of chronic diseases in the assigned population of a GP, according to the GP personality? Preliminary results from the GP personality collaborative study

Ileana Gefaell, Aleksandar Zafirovski, Maria Bakola, Zoltán Lako-Futó, Marija Zafirovska, Dunia Bel Verge, Maria Isabel Fernández San Martín, Anna Kamienska, Janis Blumfelds, Limor Adler, Carla Gouveia, Joana Sousa, Luiz Miguel Santiago, Marta Castelo Jurado, Laura Calvo García, Özden Gökdemir, Eleni Jelastopulu, Aleksander Stepanović, Ana Carmen San Martín Luís, Oğulcan Çöme, Ana Peñalver Andrada, Marta Pérez Álvarez, Lourdes Ramos Del Río, Marina Guisado-Clavero, Cristina Muntañola Valero, Claudia Iglesias Carabias, Javier Rubio Serrano, Marcos Pascual García, Sara Ares-Blanco

Keywords: Personality Inventory, Physicians, Primary Care, diagnosis, Chronic Disease

Background:

The personality of a general practitioner (GP) may influence diagnostic decisions and patient care

Research questions:

Is there an association between GP personality traits and the prevalence of chronic diseases (CD) in their practice?

Method:

Cross-sectional, survey-based study in 9 European countries.
Population: GPs attending the same population for >1 year.
Variables: Socio-demographics, years of experience, years at the current practice, and prevalence of chronic diseases among the panel. Personality Assessment: Big Five Inventory, (44-item Likert scale), personality traits: Openness to Experiences (OE), Conscientiousness, Agreeableness, Extraversion, and Neuroticism. Chronic Diseases: Diabetes, hypertension, coronary heart disease, stroke, anxiety, depression, arthrosis, and COPD.
Analysis: Descriptive and bivariate analyses were conducted. Personality traits were categorised into tertiles, and CD were grouped by medians. Logistic regression models, adjusting by country, years of experience, years at the same practice, and total patient.

Results:

In all, 531 GPs from eight countries were included, (mean age 46 (SD:11.6) years; 376 (70.8%) women). Participants had 15.4 (SD:10.8) years of experience and attended the same population for 11.2 (SD:9.5) years.
BFI scores: OE:3.3 (IQR:3–3.6); Extraversion: 3.3 (IQR:2.9–3.6); Agreeableness: 3.7 (IQR:3.2–4); Conscientiousness: 3.7 (IQR:3.2–4); and Neuroticism: 2.8 (IQR:2.4–3.1).
Crude odds ratios (ORs) indicated that higher scores for OE, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness were associated with a greater prevalence of hypertension: OE, OR:1.84 (95%CI:1.18–2.89, p-value=0.007); Extraversion, OR:2.21 (95% CI:1.38–3.55, p-value<0.001); Agreeableness, OR:1.98 (95%CI:1.25–3.15, p-value=0.003); Conscientiousness: OR:1.67 (95%CI:1.07–2.60, p-value=0.022).
Agreeableness was associated with higher prevalence of patients with depression OR:1.82 (95%CI:1.15–2.89, p-value=0.009) and arthrosis OR:1.89 (95%CI:1.19–2.89, p-value=0.006).
After adjusting for confounders, all associations lost significance, except for arthrosis and Agreeableness OR:2.14 (95%CI:1.24–3.70, p-value=0.006).

Conclusions:

GPs with higher Agreeableness scores had a greater percentage of patients with arthrosis. However, no association was found in the rest of crude associations. Nonetheless, personality traits were consistently included in the best-fitting regression models, suggesting that GP personality may influence clinical practice.

Points for discussion:

What do you conclude from this results?

Do you think that patients with muskuloskeletical complaints require more agreable doctors?

What personality traits you believe are neccessary to practice Family Medicine?

#98