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Is frequent attendance in primary care disease-specific?

Alison Foster1, Kelvin Jordan, Peter Croft

  • 1Primary Care Sciences Research Centre, Keele University, Keele, Staffs ST5 5BG, UK.

Family Practice
|May 6, 2006
PubMed

Insights

Frequent primary care consultation is linked to all types of diseases, not just specific ones. This suggests an individual characteristic drives frequent attendance, regardless of the specific health conditions presented.

Area of Science:

  • General Practice and Primary Care Research
  • Health Services Research
  • Epidemiology

Background:

  • Sociodemographic factors of frequent general practice attenders are established.
  • The relationship between frequent primary care attendance and specific diseases remains unclear.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To determine if frequent primary care consultation correlates with specific morbidities.
  • To assess if the general practice attended influences the relationship between frequent consultation and morbidity.

Main Methods:

  • A one-year survey of consultation data was conducted.
  • 1000 adults from nine general practices in North Staffordshire, UK, were randomly selected.
  • Participants were categorized into frequent, medium, and low consultation groups based on their primary care visits.

Main Results:

  • All morbidity chapters were associated with frequent consultation.
  • Frequent consultation correlated with repeat consultations for most morbidities.
  • Stronger associations were observed for mental, blood, circulatory, digestive, and endocrine disorders, as well as injuries and poisoning.

Conclusions:

  • Frequent primary care consulters are not limited to specific disease groups.
  • Frequent consultation appears to be an individual characteristic, independent of specific symptoms.
  • Identifying prevalent morbidities among frequent consulters can inform practice policies and future research.
Abstract

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