Survey of attitudes among general practitioners regarding the introduction of a personal computer medical network system in community health care]

General practitioners (GPs) play an important part in community health care. Their opinion regarding introduction of a medical information network system using a personal computer and factors influencing the decision to introduce such a system were surveyed among 977 randomly sampled GPs. A response from 727 GPs was obtained. Based on a two stage selection method, 20 factors were selected as effective factors among the 73 factors surveyed, with the following results: (1) Responses to the question concerning the approval of system introduction were classified into three groups: "not necessary + too early to make a decision (DA)" (DA group), "approve (A)" (A group) and "undecided (UD)" (UD group). Each group had nearly equal numbers of respondees. (2) Significant effective factors were "experience with personal computers", "a desire to use a personal computer", "a desire to use a computer-diagnosis-system", "cost", and "a volition to operate a computer by himself". (3) The "A group" had high experience and affirmative opinions, while the "DA group" had low experience and negative opinions. The "UD group" also tended to respond with "do not know" regarding the factors. (4) Approval of system introduction requires providing basic knowledge on computers, opportunities for positive experience with computers, and practical examples of problem solutions in a general practitioner's work.