GP Flashcards
What percentage of people consult their GP at least once a year?
75%
What is the average number of GP consultations per registered patient?
6 (double the rate of the previous decade)
What groups of people consult their GP more frequently?
- Older people
- Children
- Females
- Socially deprived areas
What explains the gender differences in GP consultation rates?
The higher consultation rates in women of reproductive years
Describe the ‘illness iceberg’
This refers to the observation that the majority of symptoms experienced by the population are never presented to the doctor
Define ‘illness behaviour’
‘The manner in which people differentially perceive, evaluate and respond to symptoms
Define a ‘lay referral’
People discussing their symptoms with other people, such as family members, close friends or people who are known to have had similar health problems
Describe the 5 possible triggers for consulting
- Interpersonal crisis
- Perceived interference with work activities
- Perceived interference with social/leisure activities
- Sanctioning by others who insist help be sought (lay referral)
- Symptoms persist beyond arbitrary time limit set by individual
Describe the WHO definition of health promotion
‘The process of enabling people to increase control over, and to improve, their health. It moves beyond a focus on individual behaviour towards a wide range of social and environmental interventions.’
The most effective health promotion initiatives…
operate at a population level and involve public health measures
List 3 reasons why GPs are well placed to carry out health promotion
- Most people are registered with a GP
- Most patients consult at least every 3 years, allowing for opportunistic health promotion
- GPs can link health promotion advice to a specific presenting complaint
Define primary disease prevention
Preventing disease
Define secondary disease prevention
Slowing the progression and avoiding complications of existing disease
Define tertiary disease prevention
Minimising the ill-health and disability caused by existing disease
Define ‘screening’
‘the presumptive identification of unrecognised disease or defects by means of tests, examinations or other procedures.’
Describe some negative effects of screening
- Unnecessary anxiety
- Identifying false positive results
- Unnecessary investigations and treatments
Describe the standard criteria used for assessing a screening programme
- Condition screened for should be an important one
- There should be an acceptable treatment for patients with the disease
- The facilities for diagnosis and treatment should be available
- There should be a recognised latent or early symptomatic stage
- There should be a suitable test which has few false positives and false negatives
- The test should be acceptable to the population
- The cost, including diagnosis and subsequent treatment, should be affordable
Who is offered a cervical smear and how often?
Women aged 25-64
Those aged 25-49 are called every 3 years
Those aged 50-64 are called every 5 years
For women aged 35-64, participation in a screening programme reduces the risk of endocervical cancer by ??% and the risk of advanced cancer by ??%?
60-80%
90%
The rates of uptake of the cervical smear test is lowest in what groups?
- Young women
- Women over 50
- Women from ethnic minority groups
- Women from areas of social deprivation
List some reasons for non-attendance of cervical smear tests
- Inconvenience
- Fear of cancer
- Apathy
- Concerns about the procedure
- Mistaken beliefs e.g. only women with many sexual partners get cervical cancer, lesbians and women who aren’t sexually active don’t need to get smears
Describe the Guthrie (NBS) test
Newborn blood spot test, which involves taking a small amount of blood using a heel-prick when a baby is about 5 days old, usually carried out by community midwives.
What conditions does the Guthrie test test for?
- Cystic fibrosis
- Congenital hypothyroidism
- Sickle cell disease
- Other inherited metabolic disease
Define ‘surveillance’
‘A system of ongoing health checks to detect abnormality/disease in a previously health individual’ or ‘a system of ongoing health checks to detect complications and monitor the progression of a patient with existing disease’.
Describe Child Health Surveillance
A series of observations, measurements and screening tests at specified ages to monitor growth and development, and to detect psychological and medical problems.
Who is Child Health Surveillance carried out by?
Health visitors in GP practices or GPs
What is a health visitor?
A nurse with higher training who has a statutory duty to provide advice, support and surveillance for all pre-school children
Describe the goals of the Child Health Programme
- Identify and treat physical problems and developmental delays as early as possible
- Minimise disability and impairment by early and effective intervention
- Provide support an resources for children with identified conditions
- Offer health information to promote physical and mental health and well being
- Identify and support vulnerable children and their families
Describe the specific activities involved in the Child Health programme
- 6-week check screening for specific medical problems
- Measurement of height and weight to detect and prevent failure-to-thrive and obesity
- Assessment of motor skills and speech to minimise the impact of developmental delay
- Screening for vision and hearing
- Immunisations
What medical problems does the 6 week check screen for?
- Congenital cataracts
- Heart murmurs
- Congenital hip dislocations
- Testicular abnormalities
Describe the elements of ante-natal care
- Taking regular measurements of the developing foetus to detect intra-uterine growth retardation
- Taking regular measurements from the mother to detect pre-eclampsia and other pregnancy-related conditions
- Screening (for chromosomal abnormalities and neural tube defects)
- Immunisation of the pregnant woman against influenza
Describe the ‘locus of control’ belief
The degree to which people believe they have control over their own lives and healthcare.
People who believe they can influence their destinies have ‘internal’ locus and those who believe they have little control have ‘external’ locus.
Describe the ‘health belief model’, and the 6 factors it depends on
This belief attempts to explain and predict health-related behaviours and suggests that uptake of health promotion depends on 6 factors:
- Perceived susceptibility (opinions of chances of getting a condition)
- Perceived severity (opinion of seriousness and consequences of the conditions)
- Perceived benefits (belief in the efficacy of the advised action to reduce risk or seriousness)
- Perceived barriers (opinions of the tangible and psychological cost of the advised action)
- Cues to action (strategies to activate ‘readiness’)
- Self-efficacy (confidence in one’s ability to take action)
List the 4 factors thought to influence perceived susceptibility to a disease/condition
- Self-evident personal differences between individuals (including hereditary)
- The social environment (including wealth an occupation)
- The physical environment
- Luck
List the strategies of motivational interviewing
- Avoid medical labelling
- Avoid giving advice
- Invite the patient to define his/her problems
- Invite the patient to describe the pros and cons of their behaviour
- Empathise with the difficulty of change
- Allow the patient to view the decision as theirs to make
- Invite the patient to come back and discuss progress
Describe the Stages of Change cycle
- Pre-contemplation: not recognising the need for change/not actively considering change
- Contemplation: recognising problem and is considering factors for and against change
- Preparation: planning and commitment to change
- Action: has already initiated change
- Maintenance: adjusting to change and is practising new skills and behaviours to maintain change
- Relapse: relapse from change OR 6. Abandoned risky behaviour
What technique can a GP use if they do not have time to complete a full motivational interview session?
Brief intervention
List some of the benefits of continuity of GP care
- Better patient satisfaction
- Better trust
- Better quality of management
- Reduced prescriptions
- Reduced hospital admissions
What is the golden minute?
Allowing the patient to speak uninterrupted for the first minute of the consultation
Define safety netting
Making a contingency plan incase things don’t go according to plan - should include signs to watch for, timeframes and how to seek help
Describe the ‘inductive method’ of diagnosis
Linear, sequential process whereby a diagnosis is made following the symptomatic and indiscriminate gathering of standard medical information (history, examination and investigation).
Describe the ‘Hypothetic-deductive’ method of diagnosis
This model involves gathering information from a patient, formulating a hypothesis and then gathering further selective information which can help prove or refute this hypothesis.
Describe the ‘Heneghan et al’ method of diagnosis
A refined and more complex version of the hypothetic-deductive model, including stages:
- Initiation of the diagnosis
- Spot diagnosis: the unconscious recognition of a non-verbal pattern (e.g. shingles)
- Self-labelling: the patient tells the GP what they think is the problem
- Presenting complaint
- Pattern recognition trigger: immediate diagnosis from the history (e.g. appendicitis) - Refinement
- Restricted rule outs: depends on knowing the common, non-serious and rarer, more serious causes of a presentation (e.g. headache - migraine vs meningitis)
- Stepwise refinement: refining anatomical location or pathological processes
- Probabilistic reasoning: deciding the likelihood of a condition based on the doctors knowledge of incidence/prevalence of the disease
- Pattern recognition fit: comparison with previous cases
- Clinical prediction rule: using formal validated scores (e.g. Well’s score for DVT) - Defining the final diagnosis (unnecessary if diagnosis is clear)
- Known diagnosis
- Further tests ordered
- Test of treatment
- Test of time
- No label applied
Describe red flag symptoms
Specific symptoms or signs which may be volunteered by the patient or elicited by the door to rule out a serious condition. A red flag usually triggers a more detailed examination, investigation or referral to hospital.
Define prevalence
The proportion of a population with the condition
Define sensitivity
The chance that the test is positive in those with the disease (true positive): (true positive)/(true positive + false negative)
Define specificity
The chance that the test is negative in those without the disease (true negative): (true negative)/(false positive + true negative)
Define positive predictive value
The chance that a patient with a positive test result actually has the condition (true positive)/(true positive + false negative)
Define negative predictive value
The chance that a patient with a negative test result does not actually have the condition (true negative)/(true negative + false negative)
Positive and negative predictive value are affected by disease prevalence (T/F)
True - as prevalence increases, PPV increases and NPV decreases
Define a diagnostic label
A working diagnosis that functions as a basis for decisions
About ??% of problems presenting in GP have no diagnostic label
50%
List the 5 central ethos of GP
- Continuity of care
- Comprehensiveness
- Complexity
- Coordination
- Context
Define absolute risk
The chance of getting a disease
Define relative risk
The chance of getting a disease in one situation compared with another (e.g. smoker vs non-smoker)
Define number needed to treat
The number of patients who need to be treated in order to prevent one additional adverse outcome.
On average, GPs issue a prescription in about ??% of consultation?
66%
What percentage of hospital admissions are associated with adverse drug reactions?
6.5%
Define evidence based medicine
The conscientious, explicit and judicious use of current best evidence in making decisions about the care of individual patients.
List the hierarchy of evidence
- Systematic review - review of all published and unpublished research on a particular question
- Meta-analysis - secondary analysis of pooled data from a number of studies
- RTC - participants randomly allocated to ‘treatment’ or ‘no treatment’ and followed up
- Cohort study - 2 groups are selected for their exposure/non-exposure to a factor and followed up
- Case-control study - patients with a condition are matched with controls and data is collected retrospectively to look for exposure to factors
- Case report - detailed description of a particular case
Define chronic condition
Diseases of long duration for which there is no cure, and which generally progress slowly, impact on a person’s life and which require ongoing care and support
Define long-term condition
A broader term which includes chronic conditions, as well as permanent conditions such as learning disability, symptom complexes or sensory impairment
Define co-morbidity
A disease which is additional to the main disease
Chronic disease accounts for ??% of death worldwide, and ??% of death in the UK
60%
85%
In Scotland, 1 in ? people over 16 have a long-term condition
4
Patients living in deprived areas are more than ??x as likely to have a long term condition than those in affluent areas
2x
List the top 10 commonest chronic conditions in the UK
- Hypertension
- Depression
- Diabetes
- Asthma
- CHD
- COPD
- CVA
- Dementia
- Epilepsy
- PAD
??% of British adults are obese, and ??% are overweight or obese
25%
61%
Chronic disease accounts for ??% of GP consultations
80%
List the situations where it is possible to divulge patient information without their consent
- If a patient continues to drive although you are aware they have a reason not to, you should inform the DVLA
- The patient may cause serious physical or psychological harms to themselves or others, including children
- Serious communicable diseases (e.g. HIV) when patients are knowingly putting others at risk
- Patient is unfit to work and continuing to do so puts others at risk
List some causes of dyspepsia
- GORD
- Peptic Ulcer Disease
- Non-ulcer dyspepsia
- Hiatus hernia
- Barrett’s oesophagus
- Gastric cancer
- Oesophageal cancer
- Drugs e.g. NSAIDs, calcium antagonists, nitrates, theophylline, bisphosphonates, anti-platelet drugs
- Alcohol
- Smoking
List the features in a history which may make you suspect a patient has dyspepsia?
- Epigastric pain (often post-prandial, may wake patient at night), nausea, vomiting, distention, burning, heartburn
- Previous dyspepsia/GORD
- NSAID/calcium antagonists/theophylline/bisphosphonates/anti-platelet use
- Alcohol
- Smoking
List the red flag symptoms for dyspepsia
- Weight loss
- Dysphagia
- Persistant vomiting
- Haematemesis
- Melena
- Gastric mass
- Iron deficiency anaemia
List the typical examination findings for a patient presenting with dyspepsia
Often normal
What investigations would you order in a patient presenting with dyspepsia
- FBC, ferritin
- H. Pylori stool antigen test
- Consider endoscopy
What are the indications for an endoscopy in a patient with dyspepsia?
- Red flags present (urgent endoscopy)
- H.Pylori test negative and no response to medication
- > 55 with persistent or recurrent dyspepsia (routine referral)
How would you manage a patient presenting with dyspepsia (no red flags)?
- Stop precipitating drugs
- Reduce alcohol/smoking
- Trial Alginates/PPIs/H2RA
Define normal bowel habit
3 movements per day to 3 movements per week
Define diarrhoea
> 3 loose stools per day
Most common cause of acute diarrhoea
Infection
What other symptoms would someone with infective diarrhoea have?
Fever
Vomiting
Blood in the stool
Describe the causes of infective diarrhoea
- Rotavirus - common in children. Presents with severe watery diarrhoea, vomiting, fever and abdominal pain for about a week
- Norovirus - affects all ages. Presents with watery diarrhoea, vomiting, fever and abdominal pain. Very contagious
- C.Diff - common in hospital patients
- Food poisoning - affects all ages. Symptoms occur within hours to days of ingesting affected foods.
- Traveller’s Diarrhoea - common in patients returning from abroad and is mainly caused by ingestion of contaminated food or water
List 4 drugs which commonly cause diarrhoea
- Antibiotics
- Metformin
- Ferrous sulphate
- Laxatives
When would investigations be indicated in a patient with acute diarrhoea?
- Person is systemically unwell, needs hospital admission and/or antibiotics
- Blood or pus present in the stool
- Patient has recently had antibiotics or been in hospital
- Patient has been travelling and a parasitic infection is suspected
How would you manage a patient with acute diarrhoea?
If patient is not at risk of dehydration: drink plenty and rest
At risk of dehydration: admit to hospital
Consider antibiotics if culture indicates. Consider contacting local health protection unit.
List 7 causes of chronic diarrhoea
- Coeliac disease
- IBD
- Diverticulitis
- Chronic infection
- Anxiety
- ‘Overflow’ diarrhoea - leakage around impacted faeces
- Colonic carcinoma
What features in a patients history would make you suspect that they had Coeliac disease?
- Weight loss
- Diarrhoea
- Fatigue
- Association with gluten
- Family history of autoimmune disease