OBJECTIVES To quantify physician-reported preventive counseling and screening during well-child visits (WCVs) and to examine racial and ethnic disparities in these activities. DESIGN Cross-sectional study using the National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey, January 1993 through December 2002. SETTING Office-based physician practices. PARTICIPANTS Children from birth to 18 years old who were...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES More than two thirds of Americans are overweight or obese. Physician counseling may help patients lose weight; however, physicians perceive these discussions as somewhat futile and time-consuming. An effective and efficient tool for smoking cessation is the Five A's (Ask, Advise, Assess, Assist, and Arrange). We studied the effectiveness of the Five A's in weight-loss ...

Methods Using cross-sectional data from the 2006-2009 National Ambulatory Medical Care Surveys (n=123,192), we examined the prevalence of physician counseling about stress in the primary care setting. We used logistic regression analyses to identify characteristics (patient sociodemographics, health status, diagnoses, and health utilization) associated with visits offering stress management cou...

OBJECTIVE To assess the effects of a communication skills training program for physicians and patients. DESIGN A randomized experiment to improve physician communication skills was assessed 1 and 6 months after a training intervention; patient training to be active participants was assessed after 1 month. Across three primary medical care settings, 156 physicians treating 2,196 patients were ...

Sao Paulo Med J. 2007;125(2):115-21. R E V IE W A R T IC L E Marcos Ausenka Ribeiro Milton de Arruda Martins Celso Ricardo Fernandes Carvalho The role of physician counseling in improving adherence to physical activity among the general population Health Promotion Center, Hospital das Clínicas, Faculdade de Medicina da Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil The regular practice of physica...

PURPOSE Primary care practices are an ideal setting for reducing national smoking rates because >70% of smokers visit their physician annually, yet smoking cessation counseling is inconsistently delivered to patients. We designed and created a novel software program for handheld computers and hypothesized that it would improve clinicians' ability to provide patient-tailored smoking cessation co...