The Introduction of Green Prescription into Family Medicine Practices in Croatia

Lorena Bosnar, Valerija Bralić Lang

Keywords: physical activity, family physicians, Green Prescription

Background:

Regular physical activity (PA) plays an indisputable role in prevention and management of chronic non-communicable diseases. The Green Prescription (GP) represents a written recommendation for PA, and it is currently being used, in various forms, by many countries in the world (Sweden, UK, New Zealand, Japan, Canada etc.). In Croatia, it hasn’t been used by family physicians (FP) so far, but only by physicians working in few Institutes of Public Health.

Research questions:

To examine and evaluate the level of FP' interest in additional education on the topic of prescribing PA and to assess their interest in implementing GP in their daily work.

Method:

A short cross-sectional survey will be conducted on 500 FP working in family medicine (FM) practices in Croatia, regardless of whether they are FM specialists or not. The online questionnaire designed for this survey will, beside standard demographic data (age, sex, years of working experience, FM specialty status, regular or substitute status), encompass questions regarding the frequency of their assessment of PA in patients, frequency of counselling on PA, their knowledge of the concept and function of GP, and whether they are willing to, in their free time, further educate themselves on the topic of prescribing PA and implementing GP in their daily work. Responses will be evaluated on the basis of the 5-point Likert scale, allowing also for free comments in support to further elaboration of the statements and to overall qualitative assessment of the concept. The participants will be recruited via an email notification that will contain a link to the web version of the questionnaire set up via the SurveyMonkey® platform (SurveyMonkey Inc., Palo Alto, CA). The software will not collect respondents’ IP addresses and will be completely anonymous and voluntary.

Results:

TBD by survey analysis.

Conclusions:

TBD

Points for discussion:

Bearing in mind the daily workload of PF, do they have time to devote to prescribing PA?

Are FP motivated enough and do they consider themselves adequately educated to prescribe PA?

Do FP feel that additional education will increase their confidence in prescribing PA on a daily basis?