Population Based Screening Flashcards
Define diagnosis
The definitive indenitification of a suspected disease or defect by application of tests, examinations, or other procedures (which can be extensive) to definitively label people as either having the disease or not having a disease
What does the process of diagnosis include?
Presentation, followed by history, examination, and tests, which then leads to the conclusion of disease or no disease
What will follow a diagnosis?
Treatment
What must the patient be prepared to accept regarding the treatment following a diagnosis?
The (reasonable) risks/side-effects associated with the treatment, in order to get well
What are the ways of detecting diseases?
- Spontaneous presentation
- Opportunistic case finding
- Screening
What happens in spontaneous presentation?
The patient self-defines themselves as a patient, and presents with symptoms
Who may a self-defined patient spontaneously present to?
- GP
- A&E
- Other services
What happens in an opportunistic case finding?
Person presents with symptoms related to a disease/problem, and the health professional takes the opportunity to check for other potential conditions
What kind of investigations may a HCP do that leads to a opportunistic case finding?
- BP measurement
- Urine dipstick
How does an opportunistic case finding differ from a spontaneous presentation?
The patient is still the one to intitate contact
What is screening?
A systematic attempt to detect unrecognised condition by the application of tests, examinations, or other procedures, which can be applied rapidly and cheaply to distinguish between apparently well persons who probably have a disease (or its precursor) and those who probably don’t
Does screening provide a definitive diagnosis?
No
What does the screening process involve?
Screening with a rapid/cheap test, leading to a positive or negative screen. People who screen positive are deemed to be at high risk, and so undergo diagnostic tests to determine wether they have the disease or not
How does the National Screening Committee define screening?
The process of identifying healthy people who may be at increased risk of a disease or condition. The screening provider then offers information, further tests, and treatment. This is to reduce associated risks and complications.
What is the purpose of screening?
To give a better outcome compared with finding something in the usual way (having symptoms and self-reporting to health services)
When is there no point in screening?
If treatment can wait until there are symptoms, only useful if better outcomes if you find/intervene earlier
What screening programmes are currently in place in the UK?
- Abdominal aortic aneurysm
- Bowel cancer screening
- Breast screening
- Cervical screening
- Diabetic eye screening
- Fetal anomaly screening programme
- Infectious diseases in pregnancy screening
- Newborn and infant physical examination
- Newborn blood spot
- Newborn hearing screening program
- Sickle cell and thalassaemia
What screening programmes are currently not in place nationally in the UK?
- Prostate cancer
- Breast cancer screening with mammography for women under the age of 50 except those in a pilot study
- Cervical cancer for women under the age of 25
What are five areas of criteria for screening programmes?
- Condition
- Test
- Intervention
- Screening programme
- Implementation
What are the ‘condition’ criteria for a screening programme?
- Must be an important health problem with good understanding
- All the cost-effective primary prevention interventions should have been implemented as far as practicable
- In the case of genetic screening, if the carriers of a mutation are identified as a result of screening, the natural history of people with the status should be understood
On what factors is the importance of a health problem measured when considering screening?
- Frequency
- Severity
What factors must be understood about a health problem when considering screening?
- Epidemiology
- Incidence
- Prevalence
- Natural history
Must know how a condition behaves, and what would happen if we didn’t intervene
What are the ‘test’ criteria for screening programmes?
- Simple, safe, precise, and validated screening test
- Distribution of test values in the population must be known
- Acceptable to target population
- Agreed policy on further diagnostic investigations to those who test positive, and choices available to them
- If the test is for a particular, or set of, genetic variants, the method for their selection, and the means through which these will be kept under review in the programme should be clearly set out
What are the ‘intervention’ criteria for screening tests?
- There must be effective intervention for patients identified through screening, with the evidence that intervention at a pre-symptomatic phase leads to better outcomes for the screened individual compared to usual care
- Should be agreed evidence based policies. covering which individuals should be offered interventions, and the appropriate intervention to be offered
What are the ‘screening programme’ criteria for screening programmes?
- Must have proven effectiveness in reducing mortality and morbidity
- Evidence that complete screening programme is acceptable to health professionals and the public
- Benefit gained by individuals should outweigh any harms
- Opportunity cost of screening programme should be economically balanced in relation to the expenditure on medial care as a whole
What is needed to prove the effectiveness of a screening programme at reducing mortality or morbidity?
High quality RCT data