Bmc Fam Pract
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Collaborative care (CC) is an organisational framework which facilitates the delivery of a mental health intervention to patients by case managers in collaboration with more senior health professionals (supervisors and GPs), and is effective for the management of depression in primary care. However, there remains limited evidence on how to successfully implement this collaborative approach in UK primary care. This study aimed to explore to what extent CC impacts on professional working relationships, and if CC for depression could be implemented as routine in the primary care setting. ⋯ Primary care professionals in this study valued the potential for collaboration, but GPs' understanding of CC and organisational barriers hindered opportunities for communication. Further work is needed to address these organisational barriers in order to facilitate collaboration around individual patients with depression, including shared IT systems, facilitating opportunities for informal discussion and building in formal collaboration into the CC framework.
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To assess the degree of awareness, agreement, adoption and adherence of physicians in Indonesia to type 2 diabetes mellitus guidelines, and their association with characteristics of the responders. ⋯ High awareness of the Indonesian type 2 diabetes guideline does not necessary lead to adoption or adherence to recommendations important for outcomes and quality of care. The awareness-to-adherence model helps in identifying barriers for the use of guidelines.
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Peripheral arterial disease (PAD) is a marker of systemic atherosclerosis and associated with a three to six fold increased risk of death from cardiovascular causes. Furthermore, it is typically asymptomatic and under-diagnosed; this has resulted in escalating calls for the instigation of Primary Care PAD screening via Ankle Brachial Index (ABI) measurement. However, there is limited evidence regarding the feasibility of this and if the requisite core skills and knowledge for such a task already exist within primary care. This study aimed to determine the current utility of ABI measurement in general practices across Wales, with consideration of the implications for its use as a cardiovascular risk screening tool. ⋯ ABI measurement is an under-utilised and often incorrectly performed procedure in the surveyed general practices. Prior to its potential adoption as a formalised screening tool for cardiovascular disease, there is a need for a robust training programme with standardised methodology in order to optimise accuracy and consistency of results. The significance of a diagnosis of PAD, in terms of associated increased cardiovascular risk and the necessary risk factor modification, needs to be highlighted.
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Multicenter Study
Aiming to improve the quality of primary mental health care: developing an intervention for underserved communities.
The purpose of the study was to improve the quality of primary mental healthcare in underserved communities through involvement with the wider primary care team members and local community agencies. ⋯ This study demonstrates how engaging with practices and delivering training in a changing health care system might best be attempted. The importance of engaging with community agencies is clear, as is the use of the AMP model as a template for further research.
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Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) is a chronic disease with repeated exacerbations resulting in gradual debilitation. The quality of life has been shown to be poor in patients with COPD despite efforts to improve self-management. However, the evidence on the benefit of self-management in COPD is conflicting. Whether this could be due to other unmet needs of patients have not been investigated. Therefore, we aimed to explore unmet needs of patients from both patients and doctors managing COPD. ⋯ In conclusion, our study showed that knowledge of COPD is generally poor. There was mislabelling of COPD as asthma by both patients and physicians. This could have resulted in the lack of understanding of treatment options, outcomes, and prognosis of COPD. The misconception that cough due to COPD was contagious, and breathlessness that resulted from COPD, had important physical and psychosocial impact, and could lead to social isolation. Most patients and physicians did not favour self-management approaches, suggesting innovations based on self-management may be of limited benefit.