The use of data Flashcards
What percentage of patients are referred to secondary care?
3%
Compare the factors which are involved in disease vs. illness.
Disease = symptoms, signs, diagnosis, bio-medical perspective Illness = ICE, patient perspective
Nem 4 factors that affect the uptake of care.
- Concept of ‘lay referral’
- Peers, family, internet, TV etc
- Medical factors: new symptoms, disease sevreity
- Non-medical: crisi, peer pressure, age, gender, ethnicity
Describe the patterns of uptake in care in males vs. females.
Males - High below 4 years then drops from 5-14 then slowly rises up to 75+
Females - not as much of an increase
What are the three main aims in epidemiology?
- Description
- Explanation
- Disease control
Epidemiology compares groups in order to do what?
Gain etiological clues
Scope for prevention
Identification of high risk priority groups
What is the difference between clinical and epidemiological medicine?
Clinical - deals with individual
Epidemiology - deals with population
What would be the numerator and denominator in epidemiology? Give an example.
Events/ Population at Risk
e.g deaths from IHD/Population at risk
What does incidence give information on?
Trends in causation and aetiology of disease
Define incidence.
Number of new cases
Define prevalence.
Number of people with specific disease at single point of time or time period.
What does prevalence give info on?
Absence of disease in population
Assess workload of health services
In terms of incidence and prevalence describe minor and chronic illnesses.
Minor = increased incidence, decreased prevalence (cold) Chronic = reduced incidence and increased prevalence (diabetes)
What is relative risk?
Strength of an association between suspected risk factors and disease
How is relative risk calculated?
Incidence of disease in exposed group/ incidence of disease in unexposed groups
In terms of risk. what do you need to be able to do?
Explain risk to patient
Name 8 sources of epidemiological data.
Mortality data Hospital statistics Reproductive health statistics NHS expenditure Health and household statistics Cancer statistics GP morbidity Drug misuse database
What is health literacy?
People having knowledge, skills, understanding and confidence to use health info, active partners in care, navigate systems.
Why is health literacy considered a significant health concern?
Low health literacy –> poor health outcomes and widens inequality, increases rate of emergency admissions
Give an example of poor health literacy which is a significant concern.
43% of English working adults struggle to understand instructions for childhood paracetamol dose
Describe 5 tips to help when there is poor health literacy.
- Teach back
- Chunk and check
- Use pictures
- Use simple language
- Routinely ask people if they require help writing
Give two examples of risk scores and what they are used for.
CHA2DS2-VASc (stroke risk in AF)
HAS-BLED (bleeding risk score)
What are SIGN guidelines based on?
Systemic review of scientific literature
Name 4 main types of studies.
- Descriptive
- Cross-sectional
- Case-control
- Cohort
What is a descriptive study?
Describes amount of distribution of disease in given population.
Identifies possible aetiology and emerging public health problems.
Assesses screening programs
What is a cross-sectional study?
Looks at disease frequency, survey and prevalence
How is a cross-sectional study carried out?
Observations made at a single point in time
What is a pro and con of cross-sectional studies?
Pro = quick Con = impossible to infer causation
Name 3 types of analytical studies.
Cross-sectional
Case-control
Cohort
What is a case-control study?
Use two groups (one with disease and one without) and compare.
How are results of case-control studies expressed?
Odds ratio or relative risk
Confidence intervals and p-values
What are cohort studies?
Use baseline data from group who don’t have disease. The group is then followed through time until sufficient number develop disease to study. They are then split into subgroups to determine incidence of disease.
How are results from cohort studies expressed?
Relative risk with p-values
What does cohort studies determine?
Incidence of disease
What is the purpose of trials?
Test ideas about aetiology or evaluate interventions.
What is the definitive trial method?
Randomised control trial
What is a randomised control trial?
2 groups, alterations to intervention group, gain data on subsequent outcomes of both groups to calculate relative risk.
what does randomised control trials look at.
Whether modification of a factor alters incidence
What factors should you consider when interpreting results? Name 6.
Standardisation Standardised mortality ratio Quality of data Case definition Coding and classification Ascertainment
What is ‘case definition’ for interpreting results?
Deciding whether individual has condition of interest or not.