A primary care specialist genetics service: a cluster-randomised factorial trial
Westwood, Greta, Pickering, Ruth, Latter, Sue, Little, Paul, Gerard, Karen, Lucassen, Anneke and Temple, I Karen (2012) A primary care specialist genetics service: a cluster-randomised factorial trial. British Journal of General Practice, 62, (596), 191-197. (doi:10.3399/bjgp12X630089). (PMID:22429436).
Background: GPs do not have the confidence to identify patients at increased genetic risk. A specialist primary care clinical genetics service could support GPs with referral and provide local clinics for their patients.
Aim: to test whether primary care genetic-led genetics education improves both non-cancer and cancer referral rates, and primary care-led genetics clinics improve the patient pathway.
Design and setting: cluster-randomised factorial trial in 73 general practices in the south of England.
Method: practices randomised to receive case scenario based seminar (intervention) or not (control), and referred patients a primary (intervention) or secondary (control) care genetic counsellor (GC)-led appointment. Outcome measures: GP referral and clinic attendance rates (primary), appropriate cancer and case scenario referral rates, patient satisfaction, clinic costs, and case management (secondary).
Results: eighty-nine and 68 referrals made by 36 intervention and 37 control practices respectively. There was a trend towards an overall higher referral rate among educated GPs (referral rate ratio [RRR] 1.34, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.89 to 2.02; P = 0.161), and they made more appropriate cancer referrals (RRR 2.36, 95% CI = 1.07 to 5.24; P = 0.035). No indication of difference in clinic attendance rates (odds ratio 0.91, 95% CI = 0.43 to 1.95; P = 0.802) or patient satisfaction (P = 0.189). Patients spent 49% less travelling (£3.60 versus £6.62; P<0.001) and took 33% less time (39.7 versus 57.7 minutes; P<0.001) to attend a primary than secondary care appointment; 83% of GC-managed appointments met the 18-week referral to treatment, NHS target.
Conclusion: an integrated primary care genetics service both supports GPs in appropriate cancer referral and provides care in the right place by the right person
|Digital Object Identifier (DOI):||doi:10.3399/bjgp12X630089|
|Subjects:||Q Science > QH Natural history > QH426 Genetics|
|Divisions:||Faculty of Health Sciences
Faculty of Medicine > Cancer Sciences
Faculty of Medicine > Human Development and Health
Faculty of Medicine > Primary Care and Population Sciences
|Date Deposited:||20 Apr 2012 07:43|
|Last Modified:||31 Mar 2016 14:26|
|RDF:||RDF+N-Triples, RDF+N3, RDF+XML, Browse.|
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