Our aim was to explore and compare the job satisfaction between family physicians and hospital specialists in Split, Croatia. The survey was carried out in 2005 and 2006. A validated questionnaire was composed of two parts: 92 statements and questions about job satisfaction in the form of a Lickert scale ...

Previous quantitative research showed large variations in prescribing volume and prescribing patterns of benzodiazepines among Slovenian family physicians. We performed a qualitative interview study to investigate how high-prescribing family physicians explain their own prescription. Five family physicians with benzodiazepine prescriptions in volumes larger than 4000 defined daily doses per month ...

Condition H allows family activation of a rapid response team in a hospital setting. Systematic implementation of Condition H at a 500-bed Magnet community hospital led to varied types of calls, all of which met the policy criteria. Many communication issues were discovered through this process.

OBJECTIVE: The goal was to examine pediatric hospitalist rounding practices and characteristics associated with programs conducting family-centered rounds (FCRs). METHODS: The Pediatric Hospitalist Triennial Survey, sent to a subset of pediatric hospitalists on the Pediatric Research in Inpatient Settings listserv from the United States and Canada, consisted of 63 questions ...

BACKGROUND: Working while under stress due to a family health event may result in injuries of greater severity. Work leave might mitigate such consequences. DATA AND METHODS: Workers' compensation data for 33,817 injured workers and inpatient medical data for 76,077 members of their families were extracted from the 2002-2005 Thomson ...

PURPOSE: To quantify the level of background knowledge among family physicians with regard to interventional radiology (IR) procedures, duties, and clinical responsibilities and to develop recommendations on how to further educate family physicians in IR. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Paper surveys were administered to family physicians who attended the Ontario College ...

We report on a fairly familiar alternative use of injection chloroquine in district hospitals in Ghana. Within a period of three years, pain control among six patients with scorpion sting was achieved successfully on an outpatient department basis with injection chloroquine at the Holy Family Hospital, Techiman, Ghana.

Many hospitals are adopting family-centered rounds (FCRs). Limited studies suggest that FCRs improve family and staff satisfaction. No study has investigated residents' opinions about FCRs. We sought to elicit house staff opinions regarding structure, teaching, and patient care with FCRs. In fall 2006, FCRs were implemented at Alfred I duPont ...

OBJECTIVE: Tanzania has a policy of free provision of inpatient care for young children in order to promote timely access and thus reduce the current levels of mortality. However, little is known about out-of-pocket costs that may be incurred by families in seeking care for sick children. We conducted this ...

Test a model of family physician job satisfaction and commitment. Data were collected from 1,482 family physicians in a Midwest state during 2000-2001. The sampling frame came from the membership listing of the state's family physician association, and the analyzed dataset included family physicians employed by large multispecialty group practices. ...

Surgical correction of vision is becoming increasingly popular. Laser-assisted in situ keratomileusis (LASIK) is the most popular method of corneal refractive surgery. LASIK is usually limited to adults who have stable refraction. Contraindications include the use of certain medications, conditions that impair healing, abnormal corneal anatomy, and inadequate tearing. Patients ...

Scope of practice is an important factor in both training and recruiting rural family physicians. To assess rural Idaho family physicians' scope of practice and to examine variations in scope of practice across variables such as gender, age and employment status. A survey instrument was developed based on a literature ...

This study aimed to determine the out-of pocket expenditure and coping strategies adopted by families of children admitted in a hospital in Bangladesh with pneumonia. Trained interviewers surveyed parents of 90 children and conducted in-depth interviews with six families below the age of 5 years who were admitted to the ...

The Texas Advance Directives Act was first passed in 1999 to help resolve conflicts between families and physicians when disagreements exist over continuing or halting treatments of patients. When the physician feels that continued treatment is ethically or morally unjustified and seeks to end life support for a patient against ...

This study describes instructions for after-hours care offered by family physicians' offices when patients telephone the practice. Randomly selected (n=1,680) Ontario family physicians and general practitioners were telephoned after hours from October 2007 to February 2008.Instructions among the 1,102 eligible offices suggested emergency services (58.6%; 646/1,102), the toll-free, nurse-staffed Telephone ...

Since I started commissioning articles for this 'Bites' issue of Australian Family Physician, I have been collecting unusual bite stories. So far the winner of the 'most unusual' award goes to a wombat bite sustained while skiing. The victim was the daughter of Meg A'Hearn, our editorial assistant. Meg's daughter, ...

AIM: To determine the additional financial cost to families of babies admitted to the nurseries of The Royal Women's Hospital, Melbourne, Australia. METHODS: Prospective case series of consecutive babies admitted to the Special and Intensive Care Nurseries at The Royal Women's Hospital, Melbourne, Australia. Data were collected from diaries completed ...

Children with cancer and their families benefit from both social interaction and privacy in attempting to cope with the stresses of a child's hospitalization and illness. An analysis of findings from a study of stress and coping for children with cancer evaluated design features affecting social interaction and privacy at ...

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the experiences of physicians as parents and to see if there were any differences in the parenting challenges perceived by male and female physicians. DESIGN: Mailed survey. SETTING: Newfoundland and Labrador. PARTICIPANTS: The survey was mailed to 180 male and 180 female licensed physicians, with a response ...

Natural disasters threaten the ability to staff a hospital. The objective of this study was to identify factors influencing decision to come to work during a fire disaster. The authors' hospital experienced a 17-fold increase in no-shows during a fire. Phenomenography was used to explore staff experiences immediately following wildfires. ...

An elderly patient who underwent a complex emergency abdominal aneurysmectomy two weeks ago is in coma, ventilator dependent, and in severe multisystem organ failure with a deteriorating prognostic index score. The family has become increasingly hostile towards Dr S. Cold, the consultants, the ICU nurses, and the janitorial staff. An ...

BACKGROUND: Euthanasia is an increasingly debated subject among specialized professionals and also among lay people, even in countries such as Brazil where it is not authorized. It is questionable, however, if the concept of euthanasia is well known by these persons. OBJECTIVE: The goal of this study was to investigate ...

CONTEXT: Upper respiratory conditions are common and have a significant impact on patient quality of life, medical resource expenditure, and antibiotic use. Saline nasal irrigation (SNI) is an adjunctive therapy for upper respiratory conditions; clinical studies suggest that use of SNI may be effective for symptoms of upper respiratory conditions, ...

This article provides evidence of the effectiveness of family-based, community-oriented primary healthcare programs on the reduction of ambulatory care sensitive hospitalizations in Brazil. Between 1998 and 2002, expansions of the Family Health Program were associated with reductions in hospitalizations for diabetes mellitus and respiratory problems and Community Health Agents Program ...

The N1 auditory event-related potential (ERP) is reduced in chronic schizophrenia, as is the P2 to attended tones. N1 reduction may be endophenotypic for schizophrenia, being reduced in twins of schizophrenic patients and showing heritability. Results in family members, however, are equivocal, with abnormally small N1 (consistent with an endophenotype) ...

OBJECTIVE: To examine the possibility of reducing the white coat response using an automated sphygmomanometer designed for office use, the BpTRU. Consecutive patients referred from physicians in the community to an ambulatory blood pressure (ABP) monitoring unit in an academic hospital were included in the study. PARTICIPANTS AND METHODS: A ...

PURPOSE: To find out how patients perceived the disclosure of news about their cancer as regards the physician counselling and how they perceived the flow of information between hospital-based and family physicians. METHODS: 272 cancer patients were polled with a 16-item questionnaire. RESULTS: 252 cancer patients, 92.6% of those asked, ...

Historians have increasingly come to identify that there was considerable traffic between nineteenth-century psychiatric institutions and the world beyond, with official visitors recording details of their regular forays inside asylum walls, and sometimes family members visiting the institution to check on treatments, patients' progress and welfare. This chapter explores the ...

BACKGROUND: In a prospective study to explore connections between clinical information delivery and information retrieval, 41 Canadian family physicians searched an electronic knowledge resource (EKR) as needed for practice. Research software, called the Information Assessment Method (IAM), prompted family physicians to report on the situational relevance, perceived cognitive impact and ...

Today, patients' families in the West are regaining the access to hospitals that they lost when hospitals emerged as the primary site for medical treatment, research and training at the beginning of the twentieth century. In China, however, families were never excluded from American mission-run hospitals, in fact, they were ...

BACKGROUND: Drug formularies have been created by third party payers to control prescription drug usage and manage costs. Physicians try to provide the best care for their patients. This research examines family physicians' attitudes regarding prescription reimbursement criteria, prescribing and advocacy for patients experiencing reimbursement barriers. METHODS: Focus groups were ...

As efforts begin to expand the physician workforce in response to deepening shortages of physicians, attention has focused on the value of what physicians do. There is a widely held belief that states with more specialists have poorer-quality health care, while quality is better in states with more family physicians. ...

This descriptive, cross-sectional survey study illustrates the roles for and motives of being a family visitor to accompany a hospitalized loved one during hospitalization in a Taiwanese hospital. Family visitors were approached by research assistants on a random basis in acute inpatient units. Among the 1,034 participants, 91% were relatives. ...

OBJECTIVE: To explore potential solutions to the challenge of gaining more respect for FPs from other specialists. DESIGN: An original Web-based qualitative survey, from May 27, 2004, to January 5, 2005, involving 5 rounds. SETTING: Province of Alberta. PARTICIPANTS: A sample of 28 Alberta FPs of differing experience, locations, and ...

In a study among Hungarian physicians (N = 420), we tested the hypothesis that compared to men female physicians experience higher work-family conflict (WFC) and consequent burnout. As predicted, female physicians scored significantly higher on the emotional exhaustion subscale of the Maslach Burnout Inventory and significantly more female physicians experienced ...

This study highlighted the tensions that physicians face when communicating the death of a child to parents. Ten pediatric physicians participated in interviews in which they were asked to provide specific details about end-of-life discussions they have had with families in pediatric emergency rooms. From these findings, it is evident ...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Because dermatologic complaints are encountered frequently in primary care, the education of family physicians about skin disorders is important. Data are needed to help define areas of dermatology that deserve the most time and emphasis. This study determined what types of skin problems and medications family physicians ...

The continued presence of the family physician within hospital systems is key to family medicine remaining an attractive, viable specialty in the ever-evolving world of medicine. One physician muses about her place in this complex ecosystem and believes that family physicians lose their voice and thus risk their own extinction ...

Because tube-feeding decisions are sometimes difficult, we examined physician, institutional, and patient factors associated with these decisions. Primary care physicians (n = 388) likely to manage nursing home patients in Hawaii were surveyed. Respondents indicated the factors of great importance in tube feeding decisions based on a vignette of a ...

PURPOSE: Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), or myalgic encephalitis (ME), is a contentious condition and often a diagnosis of exclusion. Current policy in the United Kingdom recommends management in primary care. We explored how patients with CFS/ME and family physicians understand this condition and how their understanding might affect the primary ...

OBJECTIVE: Little is known about physician support for prenatal screening. We sought a better understanding of physicians' values and opinions as they relate to prenatal screening, termination of affected pregnancies, and disability. METHODS: Surveys were sent to all family physicians/general practitioners and obstetricians in Saskatchewan during May and June 2005. ...

The authors describe how a patient- and family-centered model of care was introduced and adopted by their healthcare system. Since the model was introduced 2 years ago, it has been embraced by leaders and staff on both hospital campuses; patients and family members routinely consult with hospital committees, departments, and ...

Although it is well known theoretically that physicians respond to financial incentives, the empirical evidence is quite mixed. Using the 2004 Canadian National Physician Survey, we analyze the number of patient visits per week provided by family physicians in alternative forms of remuneration schemes. Overwhelmingly, fee-for-service (FFS) physicians conduct more ...

OBJECTIVE: To explore the dimensions of family physician resilience. DESIGN: Qualitative study using in-depth interviews with family physician peers. SETTING: Hamilton, Ont. PARTICIPANTS: Purposive sample of 17 family physicians. METHOD: An iterative process of face-to-face, in-depth interviews that were audiotaped and transcribed. The research team independently reviewed each interview for ...

BACKGROUND: Family physicians may have the main role in managing patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus with early nephropathy. It is therefore important to determine the clinical competence of family physicians in preserving renal function of patients. The aim of this study is to evaluate the effect of an educational ...

PURPOSE: Identify patient and family needs specifically related to an in-hospital birth or death. This study aimed to perform a gap analysis between identified needs and current hospital practice, services, and resources. METHODS: With the IRB approval, and purposive sampling using the demographics of a community hospital plus subgroups from ...

PURPOSE: For more than 25 years, family medicine residencies (FMRs) have worked with community health centers (CHCs) to train family physicians. Despite the long history of this affiliation, little research has been done to understand the effects of training residents in this underserved community setting. This study compares CHC and ...

PatientS delivered a grim assessment last week in survey data, saying only 67% would recommend their hospitals 10 friends or family. But Louis Shapim, left, from the Hospital for Special Surgery says he is concerned about the accuracy of the HCAHPS data because otherwis, "transparency isn't good, it doesn't add ...

CONTEXT AND OBJECTIVE: The needs of members of the families of intensive care unit patients have been studied, but little is known about the needs of members of the families of general hospital inpatients, especially patients with chronic diseases. The aim of this study was to identify the needs of ...

OBJECTIVES: To determine differences between family physicians and obstetricians in rates of trial of labour (TOL) attempt, vaginal birth after Caesarean section (VBAC) success, and maternal-fetal complications. METHODS: We undertook a database evaluation study in an urban Quebec secondary care hospital centre that serves a multiethnic population. Study subjects were ...