RESUMO
Most previous studies of the health care behaviour of doctors have involved doctors practicing in Western communities. These have all shown a high prevalence of self-treatment and self-referral and a reluctance to seek continuing primary medical care. This survey set out to compare the health care behaviour of doctors working in an Islamic Middle Eastern community with that of doctors working in western communities. All identifiable clinicians working in a Middle Eastern university city of 340,000 people were sent a postal questionnaire asking about their health status, their health care behaviour and their preventive health care practices. Data analysis was performed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences [SPSS] software programme. There was a 55.9% response rate. Doctors reported relatively few illnesses. However, the most common management of illness was self-treatment followed by specialist self-referral. Only 16.8% of the doctors had a regular general practitioner. Most doctors reported that they were the first doctor to treat a family member. Reported preventive health care practices were good but self-medication was common. Despite low levels of self-reported illness and good preventive care practices, doctor's illness behaviour in very similar to that of doctors practicing in Western countries