The British journal of general practice : the journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners
-
Randomized Controlled Trial Clinical Trial
Global measures of outcome in a controlled comparison of pharmacological and psychological treatment of panic disorder and agoraphobia in primary care.
Panic disorder, with and without agoraphobia, is a prevalent condition which presents primarily in general practice. Previous clinical outcome studies have been conducted mainly in specialist university departments or hospital settings, and have tended to employ complex rating scales that are not well suited for use as outcome measures in primary care. ⋯ The brief global measures reported here proved adequate to the task of assessing treatment outcome. Results indicate that treatments including cognitive behaviour therapy can be effective in the treatment of panic disorder and agoraphobia in primary care.
-
The British Journal of General Practice (BJGP) is the leading primary care journal in the world. By impact factor, it ranks 24th of all medical journals. However, despite major changes in the journal since its inception in 1954, there have been no published readership surveys since a limited report in 1969. ⋯ There is a view that the present BJGP is not relevant to the non-academic GP. This is probably due to style rather than content. Simple comparisons with a weekly multi-disciplinary journal may not be valid. The style could be updated to improve retention of information and to highlight areas of particular relevance. Readers are satisfied with the core content of the BJGP but want it to expand to include humour, clinical reviews and medical politics, for example. There is no evidence that the BJGP is more appealing to the academic GP. This study supports an expanded BJGP with an improved style.