BACKGROUND Clinical guidelines for suicide prevention often stress the identification of risk and protective factors as well as the evaluation of suicidal intent. However, we know very little about what psychiatrists actually do when they make these assessments. The aim was to investigate psychiatrists' own accounts of suicide assessment consultations, with a focus on their behaviors, attitudes...

BACKGROUND To date initiatives about work and health issues have been focused on general practitioners (GPs). The recent change to sickness certification (fit note) now requires all hospital doctors to provide patients in their immediate care with a MED 3 where necessary. AIMS To investigate the attitudes and behaviours of hospital-based trainees to the management of work and health in their ...

The debate and implementation of Clinical Ethics Consultation (CEC) is still in its beginnings in Europe and the issue of the patient's perspective has been neglected so far, especially at the theoretical and methodological level. At the practical level, recommendations about the involvement of the patient or his/her relatives are missing, reflecting the general lack of quality and practice sta...

BACKGROUND In recent years out-of-hours primary care in the Netherlands has changed from practice-based to large-scale cooperatives. The purpose of this study is to determine patient satisfaction with current out-of-hours care organised in general practitioner (GP) cooperatives, and gain insight in factors associated with this satisfaction. METHODS From March to June 2003, 2805 questionnaires...

BACKGROUND Psychological problems present a huge burden of illness in our community and GPs are the main providers of care. There is evidence that longer consultations in general practice are associated with improved quality of care; but this needs to be balanced against the fact that doctor time is a limited resource and longer consultations may lead to reduced access to health care. The aim o...

BACKGROUND Our aim was to study the smoking cessation-related 1) attitudes & experiences and 2) consultation practices of Finnish physicians and to determine if there is a relationship between the two. METHODS An online survey on smoking cessation was sent to 39 % of all Finnish physicians, with emphasis on physicians working in fields relevant to smoking cessation. A total of 1141 physicians...

BACKGROUND In the education of professionals in psychiatry, one challenge is to provide clinical placements with opportunities for students to interact and have direct contact with patients. The aim of this study was to explore Swedish psychiatric patients' perspectives on student participation in their care. METHOD In a cross-sectional survey design, 655 adult psychiatric patients at a unive...

Previous studies indicate that prior experience of the outsourcer has an impact on the actual outsourcing evaluation. However, the question where this experience derives from remains unanswered. In an empirical analysis with Germany's 200 largest banks it is empirically shown that the level of experience indeed has a significant impact on senior management's attitude towards outsourcing. Furthe...

There exists wide variation in practice regarding the use of chaperones for physical examination of the patient in primary care. Guidelines agree that a chaperone should be offered or used whenever a patient is undergoing an intimate examination. This paper aims to gauge patient views on the use of chaperones in primary care. Focus groups were used to identify themes surrounding the use of chap...