Clinical competence of family physicians in systemic arterial hypertension

Objective. To establish clinical competence of family physicians to diagnose systemic arterial hypertension and to analyze it's associations with some variables related to working conditions and; prior training. Methods. The clinical competence was established in a non probabilistic sample of 165 family physicians working in 12 units of the Institute Mexicano de Seguro Social (IMSS) in Mexico City. We used questionnaire of 160 items (true/false/don't know) to evaluate clinical competence. Association of the scores were explored for work shift (morning/afternoon), working conditions (very favorable/favorable/little favorable/unfavorable) and having been trained in a familiar medicine residency of the IMSS (yes/no). Results. There were a general low competence to diagnose systemic arterial hypertension (median score of 36 of a possible 160). There were associations of competence with more favorable working conditions (p = 0.005 Kruskal-Wallis test) and with having been trained previously (p = 0.0123 U Mann-Whitney test). Conclusions. Our results support the need to continue in this area of research to improve measuring instruments and to identify the modifiers of clinical competence to overcome the deficiencies detected in the present study.