Canadian family physician Médecin de famille canadien
-
To examine whether variation in prescribing at the level of the individual physician is associated with opioid-related mortality. ⋯ Opioid prescribing varies remarkably among family physicians, and opioid-related deaths are concentrated among patients treated by physicians who prescribe opioids frequently. Strategies to reduce opioid-related harm should include efforts focusing on family physicians who prescribe opioids frequently.
-
To describe key determinants for residents' selection of a new community-based, interprofessional site for their family medicine training, and to evaluate residents' satisfaction with their programs. ⋯ Residents selected the new community-based family medicine site for reasons of geographic location and the potential for clinical learning experiences and interprofessional education. High program satisfaction was achieved at both the new and well established sites. Family medicine residency programs developing community-based networks might consider and encourage the positive influence of interprofessional care and education. Good communication between distributed sites remains a challenge.
-
To describe the characteristics of patients with chronic noncancer pain (CNCP) prescribed opioids by community physicians and referred to a tertiary pain clinic. ⋯ Our results indicate that male, Canadian-born CNCP patients presenting with psychological morbidity or comorbidity and reporting higher pain severity ratings were more likely to receive opioids. Additionally, many CNCP patients referred to our tertiary care pain clinic were receiving opioids in excess of a 200-mg/d MED. More studies are needed to determine which factors lead to high-dose opioid prescribing in a subset of this CNCP population.
-
Referring patients with chronic noncancer pain to pain clinics: survey of Ontario family physicians.
To examine the factors associated with FPs' referrals of patients with chronic noncancer pain to a tertiary care pain clinic. ⋯ Although the results of our survey of FPs identify certain barriers to and reasons for referring patients to pain clinics, the results cannot be generalized owing to the small sample of FPs in our study. Larger studies of randomly selected FPs, who might or might not refer patients to pain clinics, are needed to provide a better understanding of chronic noncancer pain management needs at the primary care level.