Summary Background Lower-respiratory-tract infection is one of the most common acute illnesses managed in primary care. Few placebo-controlled studies of antibiotics have been done, and overall ...effectiveness (particularly in subgroups such as older people) is debated. We aimed to compare the benefits and harms of amoxicillin for acute lower-respiratory-tract infection with those of placebo both overall and in patients aged 60 years or older. Methods Patients older than 18 years with acute lower-respiratory-tract infections (cough of ≤28 days' duration) in whom pneumonia was not suspected were randomly assigned (1:1) to either amoxicillin (1 g three times daily for 7 days) or placebo by computer-generated random numbers. Our primary outcome was duration of symptoms rated “moderately bad” or worse. Secondary outcomes were symptom severity in days 2–4 and new or worsening symptoms. Investigators and patients were masked to treatment allocation. This trial is registered with EudraCT (2007-001586-15), UKCRN Portfolio (ID 4175), ISRCTN (52261229), and FWO (G.0274.08N). Findings 1038 patients were assigned to the amoxicillin group and 1023 to the placebo group. Neither duration of symptoms rated “moderately bad” or worse (hazard ratio 1·06, 95% CI 0·96–1·18; p=0·229) nor mean symptom severity (1·69 with placebo vs 1·62 with amoxicillin; difference −0·07 95% CI −0·15 to 0·007; p=0·074) differed significantly between groups. New or worsening symptoms were significantly less common in the amoxicillin group than in the placebo group (162 15·9% of 1021 patients vs 194 19·3% of 1006; p=0·043; number needed to treat 30). Cases of nausea, rash, or diarrhoea were significantly more common in the amoxicillin group than in the placebo group (number needed to harm 21, 95% CI 11–174; p=0·025), and one case of anaphylaxis was noted with amoxicillin. Two patients in the placebo group and one in the amoxicillin group needed to be admitted to hospital; no study-related deaths were noted. We noted no evidence of selective benefit in patients aged 60 years or older (n=595). Interpretation When pneumonia is not suspected clinically, amoxicillin provides little benefit for acute lower-respiratory-tract infection in primary care both overall and in patients aged 60 years or more, and causes slight harms. Funding European Commission Framework Programme 6, UK National Institute for Health Research, Barcelona Ciberde Enfermedades Respiratorias, and Research Foundation Flanders.
Professionalism topics are usually not covered as a separate lesson within formal curriculum, but in subtler and less officially recognized educational activities, which makes them difficult to teach ...and assess. Interactive methods (e.g. movies) could be efficient teaching methods but are rarely studied. The aims of this study were: 1) to test the relevance and usefulness of movies in teaching professionalism to fourth year medical students and, 2) to assess the impact of this teaching method on students' attitudes towards some professionalism topics.
This was an education study with qualitative data analysis in a group of eleven fourth year medical students from the Medical School of University Maribor who attended an elective four month course on professionalism. There were 8 (66.7%) female students in the group. The mean age of the students was 21.9 ± 0.9 years. The authors used students' written reports and oral presentations as the basis for qualitative analysis using thematic codes.
Students recognised the following dimensions in the movie: communication, empathy, doctors' personal interests and palliative care. It also made them think about their attitudes towards life, death and dying.
The controlled environment of movies successfully enables students to explore their values, beliefs, and attitudes towards features of professionalism without feeling that their personal integrity had been threatened. Interactive teaching methods could become an indispensible aid in teaching professionalism to new generations.
Since many health problems are associated with abuse and neglect at all ages, domestic violence victims may be considered as a group of primary care patients in need of special attention.
The aim of ...this multi-centre study was to assess the prevalence of domestic violence in primary care patients, and to identify those factors which influence the co-occurrence of psychological and physical violence exposure and their consequences (physical, sexual and reproductive and psychological) as obtained from medical records.A study was carried out in 28 family practices in Slovenia in 2009. Twenty-eight family physicians approached every fifth family practice attendee, regardless of gender, to be interviewed about their exposure to domestic violence and asked to specify the perpetrator and the frequency. Out of 840 patients asked, 829 individuals, 61.0% women (n = 506) and 39.0% men (n = 323) were assessed (98.7% response rate). They represented a randomised sample of general practice attendees, aged 18 years and above, who had visited their physician for health problems and who were given a physical examination. Visits for administrative purposes were excluded.Multivariate binary logistic regression analysis was used to determine the factors associated with exposure to both psychological and physical violence.
Of 829 patients, 15.3% reported some type of domestic violence experienced during the previous five years; 5.9% reported physical and 9.4% psychological violence; of these 19.2% of men and 80.8% of women had been exposed to psychological violence, while 22.4% of men and 77.6% of women had been exposed to physical violence. The domestic violence victims were mostly women (p < 0.001) aged up to 35 years (p = 0.001). Exposure to psychological violence was more prevalent than exposure to physical violence. Of the women, 20.0% were exposed to either type of violence, compared to 8.0% of male participants, who reported they were rarely exposed to physical violence, while women reported often or constant exposure to physical violence. Their partners were mostly the perpetrators of domestic violence towards women, while amongst men the perpetrators were mostly other family members.In univariate analysis female gender was shown to be a risk factor for domestic violence exposure. Regression modelling, explaining 40% of the variance, extracted two factors associated with psychological and physical violence exposure: the abuse of alcohol in the patient (OR 4.7; 95% CI 1.54-14.45) and their unemployment (OR 13.3; 95% CI 1.53-116.45).
As far as the study design permits, the identified factors associated with both psychological and physical violence exposure could serve as determinants to raise family physicians' awareness when exploring the prevalence of domestic violence. The results of previous research, showing at least 15% prevalence of exposure to domestic violence among primary care patients in Slovenia, and the female gender as a risk factor, were confirmed.
The aim of our systematic review was to analyse the published literature on the psychosocial dimension of care in family medicine and its relationship with quality of care. We wanted to find out ...whether there is any evidence on the psychosocial approach in (family) medicine. The recommended bio-psycho-social approach, besides the biomedical model of illness, takes into account several co-influencing psychological, sociological and existential factors. An online search of nine different databases used Boolean operators and the following selection criteria: the paper contained information on the holistic approach, quality indicators, family medicine, patient-centred care and/or the bio-psycho-social model of treatment. We retrieved 743 papers, of which 36 fulfilled our inclusion criteria. Including the psychosocial dimension in patient management has been found to be useful in the prevention and treatment of physical and psychiatric illness, resulting in improved social functioning and patient satisfaction, reduced health care disparities, and reduced annual medical care charges. The themes of patient-centred, behavioural or psychosocial medicine were quite well presented in several papers. We could not find any conclusive evidence of the impact of a holistic biopsycho-social-approach. Weak and variable definitions of psychosocial dimensions, a low number of welldesigned intervention studies, and low numbers of included patients limited our conclusions.
Background: Primary health care has undergone great changes as a consequence of demographic changes, growing patients’ awareness and organizational changes in the healthcare system. Declining ...interest in family medicine specialization further worsens the situation. In the period of lack of GPs and their overloading, it is necessary to include a diploma graduate nurse in the team of GPs and to define competencies and activities in such a way that encourage more active approach to the patients, meeting the indicators of quality.The purpose of the article is to describe the project of model practice in Slovenia and to present some results.Methods: A model practice introduces a new concept in the areas of human resource standards (to existing team, a diploma graduate nurse is included on a part-time basis); work competences (use of protocols for the treatment of chronic patients, extended and well-defined preventive screenings, establishing registers of chronic patients and assessing quality by means of quality indicators) and work management (redistribution of workload ).Results: Due to great interest of general practitioners, a total of 271 model practices were introduced in 2011 and 2012. MPs have been distributed evenly through different regions inSlovenia. Registers of patients with chronic diseases (COPD, asthma and diabetes) have been established and during the preventive screening, on average 2 patients with a chronic disease and 15 patients with risk factors have been detected. Patients are treated actively according to their needs rather than their preferences.Conclusions: The project of MPs enables a high quality and cost effectiveness of patients’ treatment in family medicine. With a gradual introducing of new MPs, a well planed and monitored patients’ care will be implemented in the practice. In a long run, disburdening of a secondary care level and more rational consumption of drugs are expected
European family medicine/general practice (FM/GP) has travelled the long and successful journey of profiling the discipline and has produced valuable position papers on education and research. ...Nowadays, academic medicine is one of the pillars in the future development of FM/GP in Europe. A common European curriculum on undergraduate and postgraduate family medicine is needed. Also, a sound international platform of teaching institutions and/or teachers of family medicine would foster the further development of family medicine as an academic discipline. This would stimulate students and teachers to engage in international exchange to gain new knowledge and experiences, present their work and ideas abroad and prepare the conditions for further exchange of students and teachers. Conclusion. Established departments of FM/GP, led by a teacher who is a family physician/general practitioner, at each Medical School in Europe should provide students with knowledge and skills related to the core attributes of FM/GP. International exchanges of teachers and students should foster the development of a common curriculum on FM in Europe and foster improvement in the quality of FM education.
University students are subjected to different kinds of stressors, i.e.academic pressures, social issues and financial problems. This can affect their academic achievements and quality of life.
The ...aim of this study was to determine the health-related quality of life of university students, and how it is affected by the presence of chronic diseases, mental disorders comorbidity, and patterns of medical services' use.
This web-based study included a sample of 1,410 Slovenian university students. We used a self-administered questionnaire, containing a sheet with demographic data, Zung's self-assessment inventories about anxiety and depression, and EQ-5D questionnaire. The main outcome measures were scores on EQ-5D part and VAS part of the EQ-5D questionnaire.
Independent factors associated with the health-related quality of life of university students, were the presence of chronic pain, the presence of depression and anxiety, need for urgent medical help and at least one visit to a clinical specialist in the past year. The independent factors associated with the health status of university students were the presence of chronic diseases, chronic pain, depression and anxiety, a visit to a clinical specialist, a need for urgent medical help and a visit to an emergency unit in the past year.
Health-related quality of life of university students can be seriously affected by the presence of mental disorders and chronic pain. Appropriate health-related measures should be adopted to achieve early recognition of worse health-related quality of life, the presence of mental disorders and other chronic conditions, and to enable their effective treatment.
Abstract Purpose Imaging may produce unexpected or incidental findings with consequences for patients and ordering of future investigations. Chest radiography in patients with acute cough is among ...the most common reasons for imaging in primary care, but data on associated incidental findings are lacking. We set out to describe the type and prevalence of incidental chest radiography findings in primary care patients with acute cough. Methods We report on data from a cross-sectional study in 16 European primary care networks on 3,105 patients with acute cough, all of whom were undergoing chest radiography as part of a research study workup. Apart from assessment for specified signs of pneumonia and acute bronchitis, local radiologists were asked to evaluate any additional finding on the radiographs. For the 2,823 participants with good-quality chest radiographs, these findings were categorized according to clinical relevance based on previous research evidence and analyzed for type and prevalence by network, sex, age, and smoking status. Results Incidental findings were reported in 19% of all participants, and ranged from 0% to 25% by primary care network, with the network being an independent contributor ( P < .001). Of all participants 3% had clinically relevant incidental findings. Suspected nodules and shadows were reported in 1.8%. Incidental findings were more common is older participants and smokers ( P <.001). Conclusion Clinically relevant incidental findings on chest radiographs in primary care adult patients with acute cough are uncommon, and prevalence varies by setting.
Abstract Objective The objective of this study was to determine the quality of patient care using quality indicators in 4 different Slovenian helicopter emergency medical service (HEMS) models. ...Methods This was a cross-sectional study of all 4 HEMS in Slovenia. We collected data on quality for the period from July 2003 to August 2008, in a sample of all eligible patients that were managed by HEMS during the study period (N = 833). We obtained the following data on emergency operations: the time and organizational features of the operation; the description of the patients' condition; and the on-site diagnostic and treatment procedures. We used the following as quality indicators: the number of resuscitated patients that were intubated; the number of patients with a Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) score of # 8 that were intubated; the number of patients with acute coronary syndrome that received treatment with morphine, oxygen, nitroglycerine, and aspirin (MONA); the number of patients with a National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics (NACA) scale score of $ 4 with an intravenous line; the number of patients with a NACA score of $ 5 that were given oxygen; and the number of patients with a NACA score of $ 4 that were given appropriate analgesic treatment. Results Across all HEMS bases, 36 (87.8%) resuscitated patients were intubated; 122 (81.9%) patients with GCS # 8 were intubated; 149 (89.2%) patients with ACS were given MONA treatment; 52 (92.9%) patients with a NACA score of $ 4 were given an intravenous line; 254 (92.7%) patients with a NACA score of $ 5 were given oxygen; and 18 (32.7%) trauma patients with a NACA score of $ 4 were given intravenous analgesics. The quality of patient management in HEMS in Slovenia is affected by the callout procedure, the presence or absence of a fixed rope, the type of helicopter operator, and the provider of the doctor in the helicopter team. Conclusions The data from our study indicates that the quality of patient management in HEMS in Slovenia is high. It also seems that organizational factors play a role in the quality management of patients in HEMS as well, but their effect remains unclear and needs further evaluation.
PDF
