Table 2.

GPs' ratings of meaningfulness of common activities in general practice on a scale anchored from 1 (not meaningful) to 5 (very meaningful)

Activity	Score 4 or 5 (n=1,308)1
Recent everyday symptoms and complaints	94%
(e.g. infections, lumbago, tendinitis, head ache, dyspnea, chest pain, abdominal pain, etc.)
Follow up of chronic somatic diseases	93%
(e.g. COPD, heart disease, diabetes)
Terminal care	80%
Follow up of chronic psychiatric diseases	77%
(e.g. schizophrenia, bipolar disorders, anxiety/depression)
Risk conditions	76%
(elevated blood pressure or cholesterol, low bone mass density)
On call emergency health care	70%
(e.g. trauma/accidents, acute, serious somatic and psychiatric diseases)
Meetings regarding individual patients	67%
Teaching and supervision of students and residents	64%
Follow up of persons certified unfit for work	52%
Psychosocial problems	49%
(e.g. marital crises, conflicts at work)
Nursing home medicine	48%
Quality assurance	44%
(e.g. development and maintenance of guidelines/procedures)
Medically unexplained symptoms	44%
(e.g. chronic fatigue, chronic pain syndroms)
Drug abuse/addiction medicine	41%
Meetings with local health authorities	35%
Preventive health clinics	32%
Research	29%
Practice administration/management	29%
(e.g. human resource management, bookkeeping, etc.)
School health service	21%
Health certifications	16%

1) Instead of providing a score the GPs’ were also given the option to answer “not relevant to me”. The number of GPs providing a score varied from 937 (school health service) to 1,304 (recent everyday symptoms and complaints).