The Use of Data Flashcards
What is the relevance of data and epidemiology in primary care?
When presenting to a patient, using data to back up your explanation is very useful and important for the patient
It is not possible to provide good person centred care without communicating data and risk to patients
E.g. you need to tell a patient their BP is ‘up’ - you must use data and epidemiological data to explain to the patient what ‘up’ means, where did this data come from?
What are the medical and non-medical factors that may influence an individuals decision to seek medical attention and ‘trigger’ the uptake of medical care?
Medical:
- New symptons or visible symptoms
- Increasing severity & duration
Non-medical:
- Pressure from family & friends
- Social class
- Cultural
- Patient beliefs
- TV programmes
What are the similarities and differences between primary care/GP’s and secondary care/hospital doctors?
20% of population consult their GP about a health complaint they have, the other 80% don’t do anything
3% of population end up in hospital for investigations or care
There is a complex interaction between primary and secondary care - primary care is not a filter for secondary care
General practice is the interface between the public and secondary care
What do the following terms mean?
Incidence
Prevalence
Risk
Relative risk
Incidence - The number of new cases of a disease in a population in a specified period of time
Prevalence - The number of people in a population with a specific disease at a single point in time or in a defined period of time
Risk - The chance of being exposed to an adverse affect
Relative risk - A measure of the strength of an association between a suspected risk factor and the disease under study (incidence in exposed group/incidence of disease in unexposed group)
What are some of the sources of epidemiological data that give a picture of epidemiology of UK society?
Mortality data
Hospital activity statistics
Reproductive health statistics
Cancer statistics
GP morbidity
Accident statistics
What is bias?
Bias is any trend in the collection, analysis, interpretation, publication or review of data that can lead to conclusions that are systematically different from the truth.
What are confounding factors? What are common examples of confounding factors?
A confounding factor is one which is associated independently with both the disease and with the exposure under investigation and so distorts the relationship between the exposure and disease.
Confounding factors:
Age
Sex
Social class
What are the different types of study that are used in epidemiological studies and give a brief description of each?
Descriptive studies - Describe the amount and distribution of a disease in a given population
Cross Sectional studies - Observations are made at a single point in time
Case Control studies - 2 groups of individuals, controls and cases
Cohort Study - Data collected on people who do not have the disease
What is the best way of assessing any new treatment in medicine?
Randomised controlled trial
What are the criteria for causality?
1) Strength of association
2) Consistency
3) Specifity
4) Temporality
What is the evidence based guideline ‘SIGN guideline ‘hierarchy of evidence’’?
This guideline rates the quality of evidence they find, and grade it alphabetically - A is the best
What are clinical audits?
1) Audit in healthcare is a process used by health professionals to assess, evaluate and improve care of patients in a systematic way.
2) Audit measures current practice against a defined (desired) standard
