The British journal of general practice : the journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners
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Randomized Controlled Trial Multicenter Study Clinical Trial
A randomised controlled trial of the effect of educational outreach by community pharmacists on prescribing in UK general practice.
Educational outreach visits are commonly used to promote changes in prescribing in family practice. However, the effectiveness of outreach visits has not been evaluated across a range of settings. ⋯ In large practices, educational outreach alone is unlikely to achieve worthwhile change. There is good evidence to support the use of educational outreach visits in small practices.
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Comparative Study
Assessing change in chronic pain severity: the chronic pain grade compared with retrospective perceptions.
There is no standard method of measuring change in chronic pain severity. Clinical trials commonly use serial assessment scales, completed at two points in time, to estimate change in pain severity, while clinicians usually ask patients to make a retrospective assessment of change. How the two methods compare is not known. ⋯ There was poor agreement and low correlation between two commonly used methods for assessing change in pain severity over time. This finding has important implications for both service practitioners and researchers.
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Randomized Controlled Trial Multicenter Study Clinical Trial
Telephone consultations to manage requests for same-day appointments: a randomised controlled trial in two practices.
General practitioners (GPs) in the United Kingdom have recently begun to adopt the use of telephone consultation during daytime surgery as a means of managing demand, particularly requests for same-day appointments. However, it is not known whether the strategy actually reduces GP workload. ⋯ Use of telephone consultations for same-day appointments was associated with time saving, and did not result in lower PEI scores. Possibly, however, this short-term saving was offset by higher re-consultation and less use of opportunistic health promotion.
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Demographic and socioeconomic changes have increased policy interest in informal carers. However, despite the multicultural nature of British society, most research in this field has been in majority communities. ⋯ South Asian carers' experiences largely parallel those of others, but there are some issues that are distinct, namely, language and communication barriers, culturally inappropriate services, and implicit or explicit racism. The multi-ethnic nature of Great Britain requires that professional practice enhances the ability of minority ethnic communities to provide informal care. The findings underline the important role of the PHCT in ensuring that carers' needs are taken seriously and that appropriate services reach them.