BACKGROUND Social prescribing is targeted at isolated and lonely patients. Practitioners and patients jointly develop bespoke well-being plans to promote social integration and or social reactivation. Our aim was to investigate: whether a social prescribing service could be implemented in a general practice (GP) setting and to evaluate its effect on well-being and primary care resource use. M...

INTRODUCTION As behavioral health providers integrate into primary health care clinics, it is important to examine methods used to increase primary care providers' (PCPs) knowledge of behavioral health providers' areas of expertise and service provision. Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) has been identified as one of the most common behavioral health disorders PCPs diagnose and tr...

BACKGROUND In many European countries, maturity onset diabetes mellitus (DM) is to a large extent managed in general practice. OBJECTIVE Our aim was to compare management of DM in general practice in five European countries in order to contribute to international guidelines on the management of DM by GPs. METHODS Routine monitoring of patients presenting with DM was performed during a 12 mo...

PURPOSE To describe a quality improvement for referral of National Health Service patients with macular disorders from a community optometry setting in an urban area. METHODS Service evaluation of teleophthalmology consultation based on spectral domain optical coherence tomography images acquired by the community optometrist and transmitted to hospital eye services. RESULTS Fifty patients w...

BACKGROUND Continuity of care may affect the diagnostic process in cancer but there is little research. AIM To estimate associations between patient-doctor continuity and time to diagnosis and referral of three common cancers. DESIGN AND SETTING Retrospective cohort study in general practices in England. METHOD This study used data from the General Practice Research Database for patients ...

Primary care providers refer patients to specialists when they need advice on the diagnosis or management of a particular condition; when a technical procedure, surgery, or specialized psychiatric intervention is required; or when additional expertise is needed for care of a complex chronic disease.1,2 In 2007, 3 million Canadians reported seeing a non–family physician specialist for a new cond...

BACKGROUND There is a dearth of information on how to scale-up evidence-based psychological interventions, particularly within the context of existing HIV programs. This paper describes a strategy for the scale-up of an intervention delivered by lay health workers (LHWs) to 60 primary health care facilities in Zimbabwe. METHODS A mixed methods approach was utilized as follows: (1) needs asses...

OBJECTIVE There is a paucity of literature on consultation-liaison psychiatry, in northern Nigeria. This study aimed to determine both the pattern of psychiatric referrals, and the attitudes of doctors toward the treatment of mental disorders in a teaching hospital, in northeast Nigeria. METHOD In this cross-sectional survey, we used a modified version of the self-rated Kumar 12-item question...

BACKGROUND Visiting-specialist clinics (specialist outreach) have the potential to overcome some of the substantial access barriers faced by disadvantaged rural, remote, and Indigenous communities, but the effectiveness of outreach clinics has not been assessed outside urban and non-disadvantaged settings. We aimed to assess the effects of outreach clinics on access, referral patterns, and care...

BACKGROUND Innovations to be deployed during consultations with patients may influence the clinical performance of the medical practitioner. This study examined the impact on General Practitioners' (GPs) consultation performance of novel computer software, designed for use while consulting the patient. METHODS Six GPs were video recorded consulting six actor-patients in a simulated clinical e...