The Use of Data Flashcards
Why is data gathered?
So that we can communicate risk to patients
What does data about illness allow us to determine?
Treatment plans
What are guidelines such as SIGN based on?
Data, known as the “hierarchy of evidence”
What does general practice act as?
The interface between the public and secondary care (hospital)
What percentage of general practice consultations are referred onto hospital investigation or care?
3%
Most illnesses are unreported, what is this known as?
Iceberg of illness
What is a disease?
Disorder of structure or function
What is an illness?
Disease or period of sickness affecting the body or mind
What are some factors affecting the uptake of care?
- Concept of lay referral
- “Granny knows best”
- Sources of info
- Peers, family, internet
- Medical factors
- New symptoms, visible symptoms, increasing severity, duration etc
- Non-medical factors
- Crises, peer pressure, “wife sent me”, patient beliefs, expectations, social class, economic, psychological, environment, cultural, ethnic, age, gender, media etc
What are some medical factors that impact the uptake of care?
- New symptoms, visible symptoms, increasing severity, duration etc
What are some non-medical factors affecting the uptake of care?
- Crises, peer pressure, “wife sent me”, patient beliefs, expectations, social class, economic, psychological, environment, cultural, ethnic, age, gender, media etc
What are the different categories of illnesses?
Acute, chronic or self-limiting
Do more males or females see their GP?
More females see their GPs than males, until over 65s
What are some possible issues from the patients POV about accepting they have an illness?
- Believes themselves to be healthy
- Is physically fit
- Proud to not be using tablets
- If treatment is proposed, how would he feel better
What is epidemiology?
The branch of medicine which deals with incidence, distribution and possible control of disease and other factors relating to health
What are the 3 main aims of epidemiology?
- Description
- To describe the amount and distribution of disease in human populations
- Explanation
- To elucidate the natural history and identify aetiological factors for disease usually by combining epidemiological data with data from other disciplines such as biochemistry, occupational health and genetics
- Disease control
- To provide the basis on which preventative measures, public health practices and therapeutic strategies can be developed, implemented, monitored and evaluated for the purposes of disease control
What does description mean in terms of epidemiology?
- To describe the amount and distribution of disease in human populations
What does explanation mean in terms of epidemiology?
- To elucidate the natural history and identify aetiological factors for disease usually by combining epidemiological data with data from other disciplines such as biochemistry, occupational health and genetics
What does disease control mean in terms of epidemiology?
- To provide the basis on which preventative measures, public health practices and therapeutic strategies can be developed, implemented, monitored and evaluated for the purposes of disease control
Epidemiology compares groups (study populations) in order to detect differences pointing to what?
- Aetiological clues
- Scope for prevention
- Identification of high risk or priority groups in society
What are examples of things that can define a study population?
Age
Sex
Location
What is a fundamental difference between clinical medicine and epidemiology?
Clinical medicine deals with individual patient
Epidemiology deals with populations
What is done to be clear about which populations we are talking about when we carry out studies?
We talk about ratios:
- Number of events/population at risk
- Such as deaths from IHD in men aged 55-63 in Grampian in 1990/all men aged 55-64 in Grampian in 1990
- Ratios are usually converted into rates by expressing them in terms of a specified time period (per year) and a notional ‘at risk’ population of 10n (eg % per 1000 or per 100000)
What is incidence?
Number of new cases of a disease in a population specified period of time
What does incidence and prevalence tell us about?
Incidence tells us something about the trends in causation and the aetiology of disease
Prevalence tells us something about the amount of disease in a population
What is prevalence?
Number of people in a population with a specific disease at a single point in time or in a defined period of time
What is relative risk?
Measure of the strength of an association between a suspected risk factor and the disease under study
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What does RR stand for?
Relative risk
What formula describes relative risk?
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What is absolute risk?
Absolute risk is the probability of an event happening, number of events that occurred in a group divided by the number of people in that group, this is also known as actual risk
What is absolute risk also known as?
Actual risk
What are examples of sources of epidemiological data?
- Mortality data
- Hospital and clinical activity statistics
- Reproductive health statistics
- Infectious disease statistics
- Cancer statistics
What is health literacy about?
Is about people having the knowledge, skills, understanding and confidence to use health information, to be active partners in their care and to navigate health and social care systems
What are SIGN guidelines based on?
Based on systematic review of the scientific literature and aimed at aiding the translation of new knowledge into action
What are SIGN guidelines intended to do?
- Help health and social care professionals and patients understand medical evidence and use it to make decision about healthcare
- Reduce unwarranted variations in practice and make sure patients get the best care available, no matter where they live
- Improve healthcare across Scotland by focusing on patient important outcomes
What are different classes of study types?
Descriptive studies
Analytical studies
Cohort studies
Trials
What are descriptive studies useful for?
- Identifying emerging public health problems through monitoring and surveillance of disease patterns
- Signalling the presence of effects worthy of further investigation
- Assessing the effectiveness of measures of prevention and control (such as screening programmes)
- Assessing needs for health services and service planning
- Generating hypotheses about disease aetiology
What do descriptive studies attempt to do?
- Attempt to describe the amount and distribution of a disease in a given population