The British journal of general practice : the journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners
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Multicenter Study
Estimated prevalence of people with learning disabilities: template for general practice.
In 2001, a white paper set out a commitment to ensure that people with a learning disability receive equal access to health services, with an expectation that general practices would have identified all people with a learning disability registered with the practice by June 2004. ⋯ The template provides a valuable tool for general practices to begin developing a practice-based register of patients with a learning disability. This is particularly timely in view of the revised General Medical Services contract Quality and Outcomes Framework indicator, stimulating practices to produce a register of patients with learning disability. Use of a common definition for learning disability is needed to improve consistency in identification across practices.
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Multicenter Study
Identification and guided treatment of ventricular dysfunction in general practice using blood B-type natriuretic peptide.
B-type natriuretic peptide (BNP) is a blood test which detects ventricular wall stretch and is being increasingly used in primary care on limited evidence. ⋯ About 10% of patients with diabetes or cardiovascular disease on GP morbidity registers have a persistently raised plasma BNP concentration. Simple adjustment of their drug treatment may reduce their BNP and associated mortality risk, but further up-titration against BNP is only possible if the within-person biological variability of measurement can be reduced.
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Multicenter Study
Complexity of GPs' explanations about mental health problems: development, reliability, and validity of a measure.
How GPs understand mental health problems determines their treatment choices; however, measures describing GPs' thinking about such problems are not currently available. ⋯ Results suggest that the complexity of GPs' psychosocial explanations about common mental health problems can be reliably and validly assessed by this new standardised measure.