Physicians skeptical of patients following lifestyle recommendations

A poll of more than 350 physicians found that many of them provided patients with some lifestyle change recommendations to reduce the risk for disease but didn’t believe patients actually followed their advice. Physicians were most likely to recommend patients increase their physical activity, improve their nutrition/diet, and quit smoking.

According to the Medscape poll, 61% of physicians reported that they always offered advice to patients to change their lifestyle practices, 32% said they often offered advice, and 6% offered advice only sometimes. However, when asked how often they thought patients followed their recommendations, only 3% of physicians thought their patients always did. Twenty-one percent thought patients often followed recommendations, 56% thought patients sometimes followed advice, and 16% thought patients rarely did.

Source: Medscape