Family practice
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Most clinical research in the United States has been carried out in atypical populations. This study, done in a network of primary care populations in Virginia, calculates the denominator by the utilization correction factor method and compares the demography with that of the population of the state. The demographic characteristics of the patients in the network are very similar to those of the underlying populations and on the same order of state-of-the-art sampling methods in current use.
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There is little evidence of any association, either positive or negative, between the occurrence of depression and other clinical conditions. It would be particularly useful in general practice to identify any positive association between depression and other illness as this would make depression less likely to be missed in the consultation. Morbidity data recorded in the UK second national morbidity study were analysed, attention being confined to patients aged 45 years and over, who would be more likely to be suffering from chronic illness. ⋯ Morbidity codings were analysed to discover whether any of these conditions was recorded more or less frequently than might have happened by chance in the depressed group. Examples of conditions both positively and negatively associated with depression were revealed, the former being the more highly significant statistically. Validation of these findings should be sought in a similar analysis of the data from the UK third national morbidity survey, soon to be published.
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Information about psychotropic drug prescribing in one general practice was compared with overall information about such prescribing in Australia. Over the period 1978-81 there was a significant reduction in the number of prescriptions issued for psychotropic drugs. Prescriptions for hypnotics, sedatives and minor tranquilizers were more common than those for antidepressants or major tranquilizers. ⋯ Patients for whom psychotropic drugs were prescribed had a greater overall morbidity and used medical care services more than other patients. Only 9% of patients in 1981 were issued with a prescription for one of the four most commonly prescribed psychotropic drugs. A relatively small proportion of patients, most of them elderly women, received the largest proportion of the prescriptions.