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Table 2 Responses from the four categories

From: Patient and professional attitudes towards research in general practice: the RepR qualitative study

Specificity of research in general practice

AGP 5: “We have a tutti frutti compared to other specialties” (FG Lyon)

AGP 3: “The patient needs to be studied in his natural environment” (FG Tours)

P12: “Research in general practice should target the prevention of disease, shouldn’t it?” (FG Tours)

GP 11: “Who caters for patients with diabetes as well as hypertension? We do!” (FG Lyon)

P8: “I think the relationship between patients and doctors should be taken into account, which is not the case in the specialist fields” (FG Lille)

Relevance of research in general practice

GP11: “I see it [research in general practice] as a means to improve the health care provided by doctors, and patients’ health… It is clearly not fundamental research” (FG Lyon)

GP2: “Although the media influence it a lot, I think research in general practice has helped us to restrict the prescription of antibiotics in viral epidemics, which we had always treated copiously with antibiotics” (FG Lille)

AGP5: “There is also the improvement of population health. Someone in good health doesn’t cost society much” (FG Lyon)

Recognition of professionals, patients and the discipline

AGP10: “I did a study on this subject, the title was something like "being an investigator improves the quality of GP practice” (FG Tours)

AGP3: “How can we get recognition from other researchers? It is also when people from other fields consider you as a researcher” (FG Lyon)

OA1: “I think research and publications are the best way to show your real efficacy as a GP, in your field, your domain” (FG Tours)

AGP 2: “A speciality without research is not a speciality” (FG Tours)

GP3: “The first collaborator is the patient…” (FG Lille)

Pitfalls

P2a: “[the GP] would have difficulty holding his own amongst specialists and could be seen as an amateur” (FG Lille)

AGP 10: “Most GPs do not recognize academic GPs and continue to identify themselves “like when they were little” with academic hospital specialists they met during their hospital training, relying only on them to spread the good word” (FG Tours)

AGP6: “We [academic GPs] are teaching scientific knowledge at the expense of our clinical practice… I feel a kind of a threat in this issue” (FG Lyon)

P2b: “If someone does research in his speciality, he distances himself from day-to-day practice and from his patients” (FG Lille)

Feasibility

P9a: “A GP has contacts with a much wider range of people [than a hospital practitioner]” (FG Tours)

 

OA7: “I’ll be pragmatic. Research in general practice is the research done by GPs” (FG Tours)

 

OA1: “Research in general practice seems recent to me. My personal point of view is that clinical research in general practice is an innovation” (FG Tours)

 

GP13a : “Research to me suggests a particular speciality and technological innovations very far removed from general practice” (FG Tours)

 

P9b: “For me, the image of medical research in France is someone everyone knows, Pasteur, who found the rabies vaccine“ (FG Tours)

 

P1 : “[GPs] have so many patients that they are not able to do research” (FG Lille)

 

AGP3: “We are paid with a fee system, which means time is money, so this system is a major barrier to research” (FG Lyon)

GP13b: “For example, it is not in an isolated practice that we can get a sufficient sample of patients to draw general conclusions“ (FG Tours)