Background It has been argued that primary care practitioners have an important part to play in the prevention of suicide. However, levels of assessment of risk of suicide among patients treated in this setting are generally low.Methods Cross-sectional survey of general practitioners (GPs) and people being treated in primary care who had signs of depression. The study combined open and closed q...

BACKGROUND Scotland has one of the poorest health records of all Western countries, and this has been linked to poor diet. A key part of efforts to improve health has been an action plan to improve the Scottish diet. General practice has been identified as an important setting for health promotion and the provision of healthy eating advice. OBJECTIVE The objective was to investigate the views...

BACKGROUND Patients with severe mental illness (SMI) experience distress and disabilities in several aspects of life, and they have a higher risk of somatic co-morbidity. Both patients and their family members need the support of an easily accessible primary care system. The willingness of general practitioners and the impeding factors for them to participate in providing care for patients with...

In 1952 the state of general practice in the UK and the rest of the world was dire. Specialist medicine was advancing rapidly, Lord Moran would soon describe GPs as having ‘fallen off the ladder’, and Sir Arthur Thompson stated that general practice was ‘outmoded’. GPs had no training for their job, no body of scientific knowledge, no journal or college of their own. There was not one professor...

BACKGROUND Few studies have investigated the effect of small unconditional non-monetary incentives on survey response rates amongst GPs or medical practitioners. This study assessed the effectiveness of offering a small unconditional non-financial incentive to increase survey response rates amongst general practitioners within a randomised controlled trial (RCT). METHODS An RCT was conducted ...

BACKGROUND The traditional view of general practice holds that only general practitioners (GPs) in full-time clinical practice can provide quality patient care. Nevertheless, increasing numbers of GPs are choosing to work sessionally, that is, ostensibly "part-time". There are concerns about the health workforce's ability to meet demand and also fears that patient care may be compromised. We so...

BACKGROUND The postpartum period is a time of increased morbidity for mothers and infants under 12 months, yet is an under-researched area of primary care. Despite a relatively clear framework for involving general practitioners (GPs) in antenatal care, the structure of maternity service provision in some Australian jurisdictions has resulted in highly variable roles of general practice in rout...

Here we describe the differences and similarities between training General Practitioners (GPs) to manage depression in primary care and issuing them with guidelines, and a system of Collaborative care in the treatment of depression between primary and secondary care. From these we deduce the reasons why collaborative care may offer better treatment outcomes than the issuing of guidelines to GPs.

International diagnostic criteria for depression have been elaborated in order to standardize and to facilitate diagnostic assessment. The findings of the present survey suggest that general practitioners (GPs) do accurately assess the individual depressive symptoms required to fulfill international diagnostic criteria for depressive syndromes. Training GPs to use these diagnostic criteria may ...