BACKGROUND The views of primary health care providers concerning their willingness to consult with under-16-year-old adolescent patients without the presence of a parent or guardian are not well documented. Many young people believe they have to be aged over 16 years to see their general practitioner (GP) alone. Confidentiality is a major concern for young people. It is important that more is k...

BACKGROUND Frequent attendance to primary care constitutes a large use of resources for the health care system. The association between frequent attendance and illness-related factors has been examined in several studies, but little is known about the association between frequent attendance and individual social capital. The aim of this study is to explore this association. METHODS The analys...

Measles transmission occurs readily in health care facilities such as general practices and hospitals. It can not only lead to measles in other patients at the facilities but also to measles in medical and nursing staff. In the recent (1999) measles outbreak in Victoria, four of the 62 cases were health care workers. 1 A further obvious concern in health care facilities is that those exposed ma...

The recent primary care policy debate in Australia has centred on access to primary medical (general practice) services. In Australia, access is heavily influenced by Commonwealth Government patient rebates that provide incentives for general practitioners not to charge copayments to patients (bulk billing). A steady decline in key access indicators (bulk billing) has led the Howard Government ...

BACKGROUND Changes to the workforce and organisation of general practice are occurring rapidly in response to the Australian health care reform agenda, and the changing nature of the medical profession. In particular, the last five years has seen the rapid introduction and expansion of a nursing workforce in Australian general practices. This potentially creates pressures on current infrastruct...

BACKGROUND Since the late 1980s, there has been evidence of an international trend towards more organised primary care. This has taken a number of forms including the emergence of primary care organisations. Underpinning such developments is an inherent belief in evidence that suggests that well-developed primary care is associated with improved health outcomes and greater cost-effectiveness wi...

‘The scientist does not study nature because it is useful to do so. He studies it because he takes pleasure in it because it is beautiful. If something were not beautiful it would not be worth knowing and life would not be worth living. I am not speaking of course of that beauty which strikes the senses, of the beauty of qualities and appearances. I am far from despising this, but it has nothin...

BACKGROUND Within the context of general practice, continuity of care creates an opportunity for a personal doctor-patient relationship to develop which has been associated with significant benefits for patients and general practitioners (GPs). Continuity of care is, however, threatened by trends in the organisational development of primary health care in the United Kingdom and its intrinsic ro...

background: low birth weight (lbw) is considered as an  important outcome of birth and pregnancy, which is associated with long-term consequences and health-care problems. maternal lifestyle and health care during pregnancy are powerful predictors of bw of infants. the purpose of this study was to assess the effect of a self-care educational program based on the health belief model (hbm) on red...