The British journal of general practice : the journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners
-
Increasing numbers of long-term mentally ill people now live in the community, many of whom lose contact with psychiatric services and come to depend on general practitioners for medical care. However, it has been suggested that general practitioners may be unaware of some of these patients and their needs. ⋯ These findings suggest that patients in long-term contact with specialist services cannot be taken as representative of the whole population with long-term mental illness. General practitioners could use their frequent contacts with long-term mentally ill people to play a greater role in monitoring the mental state and drug treatment of this group.
-
A screening clinic for Bangladeshi families was established in order to improve the health care provided by one general practice to its Bangladeshi patients. ⋯ This clinic provides a model which could be adapted for use with other ethnic or 'hard-to-reach' groups. It may also prove an effective way of screening all families in general practice.
-
Attendance at health checks of patients already registered with a general practitioner is known to be poor, with those in need least likely to attend. Little is known of the efficacy of such checks for newly registered patients. ⋯ Attendance at registration health checks at these practices was poor and non-attenders tended to be more socially deprived than attenders and had relatively unhealthy lifestyles. Although the health checks increased the attenders' motivation to alter smoking and drinking habits, inviting all new patients to a health check would appear to result in poor targeting of health promotion resources and may widen inequalities in health.
-
This study set out to explore the influence that holiday travel might have on the rate at which new episodes of illness are reported to general practitioners. ⋯ This study suggests that the present focus on the supposed excess morbidity of patients returning from foreign holidays is misplaced.
-
Randomized Controlled Trial Clinical Trial
Evaluation of an easy, cost-effective strategy for cutting benzodiazepine use in general practice.
This study set out to assess the effect of a letter from the general practitioner, suggesting a reduction in the use of benzodiazepines, and whether the impact of the letter could be increased by the addition of information on how to tackle drug reduction. ⋯ The results indicate that a simple intervention can have a considerable effect on the use of hypnotic and anxiolytic drugs, even with a sample of elderly users.