The British journal of general practice : the journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners
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Randomized Controlled Trial
Impact on hypertension control of a patient-held guideline: a randomised controlled trial.
Hypertension is generally poorly controlled in primary care. One possible intervention for improving control is the harnessing of patient expertise through education and encouragement to challenge their care. ⋯ In this study there was no clinically significant perceived benefit to patients as a result of providing them with a hypertension guideline. Patient guidelines are currently planned for many chronic illnesses. It is important to determine the utility of such interventions before scarce resources are applied to them.
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Shared decision making is an important aspect of patient centredness. Lack of this consulting behaviour is a common reason for failure in the Membership of the Royal College of General Practitioners (MRCGP) consulting skills examination. ⋯ This study demonstrated concurrent validity of the MRCGP consulting skills assessment of sharing management options against an independent validated instrument for shared decision making, the OPTION scale. Candidates who performed best in the MRCGP exhibited high scores with OPTION. This study provides the basis for further work to demonstrate evidence for the potential of training for professional assessment to improve consulting competence.
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Randomized Controlled Trial Multicenter Study
The effects of a team-based continuous quality improvement intervention on the management of primary care: a randomised controlled trial.
To study the effects of a team-based model for continuous quality improvement (CQI) on primary care practice management. ⋯ The intervention exerted a significant effect on the number and quality of improvement projects undertaken and self-defined objectives met. Failure of the effects of the intervention on the other dimensions of practice management to achieve significance may be due to the topics selected for some of the improvement projects being only partly covered by the assessment instrument.
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Randomized Controlled Trial
A randomised controlled trial of motivational interviewing for smoking cessation.
Motivational interviewing is a technique used to promote change in addictive behaviour, initially used to treat alcoholism. Despite this, its effectiveness has not been sufficiently demonstrated for giving up smoking. ⋯ The results of our study show that motivational interviewing is more effective than brief advice for giving up smoking.