General practitioners' attitude towards cooperation with other health professionals in managing patients with multimorbidity and polypharmacy: A cross-sectional study

Background Cooperation between general practitioners (GPs) and other healthcare professionals appears to help reduce the risk of polypharmacy-related adverse events in patients with multimorbidity. Objectives To investigate GPs profiles according to their opinions and attitudes about interprofessional cooperation and to study the association between these profiles and GPs' characteristics. Methods Between May and July 2016, we conducted a cross-sectional survey of a panel of French GPs about their management of patients with multimorbidity and polypharmacy, focussing on their opinions on the roles of healthcare professionals and interprofessional cooperation. We used agglomerative hierarchical cluster analysis to identify GPs profiles, then multivariable logistic regression models to study their associations with the characteristics of these doctors. Results 1183 GPs responded to the questionnaire. We identified four profiles of GPs according to their declared attitudes towards cooperation: GPs in the 'very favourable' profile (14%) were willing to cooperate with various health professionals, including the delegation of some prescribing tasks to pharmacists; GPs in the 'moderately favourable' profile (47%) had favourable views on the roles of health professionals, with the exception for this specific delegation of the task; GPs from the 'selectively favourable' profile (27%) tended to work only with doctors; GPs from the 'non-cooperative' profile (12%) did not seem to be interested in cooperation. Some profiles were associated with GPs' ages or participation in continuing medical education. Conclusion Our study highlights disparities between GPs regarding cooperation with other professionals caring for their patients and suggests ways to improve cooperation.

Automated summary

This study investigated the opinions and attitudes of French general practitioners (GPs) towards interprofessional cooperation in the management of patients with multimorbidity and polypharmacy. Four different profiles of GPs were identified based on their attitudes towards cooperation, with varying levels of willingness to collaborate with other healthcare professionals. The study also found associations between these profiles and the characteristics of the GPs, such as age and participation in continuing medical education.