Table 4.

Proportions of GPs experiencing various degrees of problems using the overarching and the diagnosis-specific national sickness certification guidelines

	How problematic is it to apply the overarching national guidelines for sickness certification?*						How problematic is it to issue sickness certificates in accordance with the national diagnosis-specific guidelines?†
	Very problematic	Fairly problematic	Somewhat problematic	Not at all problematic	PR for very and fairly problematic		Very problematic	Fairly problematic	Somewhat problematic	Not at all problematic	PR for very and fairly problematic
	n=202	n=965	n=1233	n=278			n=252	n=916	n=1066	n=234
	%	%	%	%	PR	95% CI	%	%	%	%	PR	95% CI
All	7.5	36.0	46.0	10.4	–	–	10.2	37.1	43.2	9.5	–	–
Educational level
Specialist	7.9	36.8	45.1	10.2	1	–	10.6	37.6	42.7	9.2	1	–
In resident training	7.9	36.8	45.7	9.6	1.00	0.87 to 1.16	11.1	38.3	42.5	8.1	1.03	0.89 to 1.18
Registered physician	6.6	38.0	43.8	11.6	1.00	0.76 to 1.31	8.8	38.9	42.5	9.7	0.99	0.75 to 1.31
Medical degree	3.0	23.7	59.2	14.2	0.60	0.44 to 0.80	4.0	26.2	52.3	17.4	0.63	0.46 to 0.85
Frequency of GPs' consultations involving sickness certification
>5 Times a week	8.2	39.8	44.5	7.5	1	–	12.0	40.7	41.1	6.1	1	–
1–5 Times a week	7.2	33.4	47.5	11.9	0.85	0.75 to 0.95	8.9	34.7	45.1	11.2	0.83	0.74 to 0.93
<1 Time a week	4.8	32.0	44.0	19.2	0.77	0.57 to 1.04	8.7	31.3	40.0	20.0	0.76	0.56 to 1.02

Data are presented as prevalence ratio (PR) with 95% CI.

^*No response from 54 GPs (1.7%), and 450 GPs had not used these guidelines.

^†No response from 66 GPs (2.1%), and 648 GPs had not used these guidelines.

GPs, general practitioners.