Family practice
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Provoked Vulvodynia (PVD) is the most common cause of vulvar pain. General practitioners (GPs) are insufficiently familiar with it, causing a delay in many women receiving correct diagnosis and treatment. Besides patients factors, this delay can partly be explained by the reluctance of GPs to explore the sexual context of PVD and by their negative emotional reactions such as helplessness and frustration when consulted by patients with medically unexplained symptoms like PVD. ⋯ Women with PVD prefer a patient-centred approach and want GPs to acknowledge their autonomy and to address sexuality proactively.
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The culture at a medical school and the positive experiences in primary care clerkships influence student specialty choice. This choice is significant if the demand for primary care physicians is to be met. The aim of this study was to examine family medicine clerkship directors' perceptions of the medical school environment. ⋯ Family medicine clerkship directors often perceived negativity towards family medicine, a finding that may limit the effectiveness of academic health centres in their mission to better serve their community and profession.
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Multicenter Study
Disability and quality of life in heart failure patients: a cross-sectional study.
Although both hospitalization and mortality due to heart failure (HF) have been widely studied, less is known about the impact of HF on disability and quality of life. ⋯ HF patients in primary care show an important degree of disability and an acceptable quality of life.
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Primary health care use increases when cancer is diagnosed. This increase continues after cancer treatment. More generalist care is suggested to improve survivorship care. It is unknown to what extent cancer-related symptoms are currently presented in primary care in this survivorship phase. ⋯ Colon cancer survivors contact their GP frequently also for reasons related to cancer. Currently, a formal role for GPs in survivorship care is lacking, but nevertheless GPs provide a substantial amount of care. Working agreements between primary and secondary care are necessary to formalize the GP's role in order to improve the quality of survivorship care.
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Health inequalities are an emerging issue in ageing societies, but inequalities in pre-frailty, which is suffered by almost half of older people, are mostly unknown. ⋯ Older individuals with a lower SES were less likely to recover from a pre-frailty status.