Family practice
-
Caring for veterans in US civilian primary care: qualitative interviews with primary care providers.
Non-VA health care providers in the USA have been called upon to screen patients for veteran status as a means to better identify military-related health sequelae. Despite this recognized need, many service members are still not being asked about veteran status. ⋯ Our study identified barriers related to non-VA providers' ability to care for veterans among their patients and possible mechanisms for improving recognition of veterans in civilian health care settings. There is a need for further research to understand how assessment, screening and follow up care for veteran patients is best implemented into civilian primary care settings.
-
Patients may be symptomatic, resulting in lower quality of life (QOL), despite L-thyroxine (LT4) therapy for hypothyroidism or having normal thyroid function. We hypothesized that their clinical symptoms of hypothyroidism and co-morbidities were associated with QOL. ⋯ In Asian patients with hypothyroidism, weight gain, feeling tired, feeling weak, having dry or coarse skin, leg swelling and increased number of co-morbidities and symptoms were significantly associated with poorer QOL.
-
Effective primary care is vital for improving health outcomes. Patient-centred consultations are important and one way of assessing this is to evaluate patient satisfaction. The Medical Interview Satisfaction Scale (MISS) has not been used in South Africa. ⋯ Further work is needed to improve the reliability of MISS subscales in the South African context and the best internal consistency was found with 21 items. Patients showed high levels of satisfaction with primary care consultations, although other studies suggest this may reflect low expectations rather than high quality consultations.
-
Retraction Of Publication Retracted Publication
RETRACTED: Mental health in primary care.
-
One-stop clinics provide comprehensive diagnostic testing in one outpatient appointment. They could benefit patients with conditions, such as cancer, whose outcomes are improved by early diagnosis, and bring efficiency savings for health systems. ⋯ This review found one-stop clinics were associated with reduced time from referral to testing, increased same day diagnoses, and were acceptable to patients and GPs. Our conclusions are limited by high levels of heterogeneity, scarcity of comparator groups, and the overwhelmingly observational nature of included studies.