HEALTH WITHIN HEALTHCARE

Introduction and Objective Primary Healthcare workers play a major role in the promotion of health and prevention of disease of their patients, and it is part of their daily work to ask patients about their habits and educate them to healthier lifestyles. But do doctors and nurses abide by what they tell their patients to do? In this study we wanted to characterize how Family Doctors and Nurses lead a healthy lifestyle themselves, based on the evaluation of the major primary care topics: physical activity, smoking, alcohol intake, vaccination and cancer screening. The health condition of these professionals is known to be of extreme importance, as there is a consistent positive relation between their own habits and their patients'. Method: This is a cross-sectional study of a sample of 388 Primary Healthcare Workers working for the Portuguese National Health System from three different regions of Northern Portugal, where the investigators work. Subjects were accessed by questionnaire, created by the investigators, since there is no validated instrument of analysis on this matter. Data was analyzed using Microsoft Excel and SPSS. Results and Conclusions: Results suggest that, generally, healthcare providers do comply with the preventive health care measures they endorse. These outcomes are of extreme importance in the interest of patients and the community, since a motivated and trustful advisor is more prone to iniciative and has a lot more impact on passing information to others.