Why it’s important to pre-test patient-reported questionnaires

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Insights from testing MYMOP and PEI

Dr Mairead Murphy

 

by Dr Mairead Murphy
Senior Research Associate
Centre for Academic Primary Care

In research studies, we use patient-reported questionnaires a lot to test if healthcare interventions work or not. Given that the correct completion of these questionnaires underpins our research conclusions, it’s important to know how patients interpret them.

We decided to look more closely at how people interpreted questionnaires. We asked people who had recently visited their GP to complete two commonly-used questionnaires in primary care and tell us their thought processes as they did this. The questionnaires we chose were:

  1. The patient enablement instrument (PEI): This questionnaire has six questions, all related to how “enabled” a patient feels following a GP consultation. It asks patient to rate their improvements in coping, understanding, self-help and other aspects of “enablement”.
  2. Measure Yourself Medical Outcomes Profile (MYMOP): This questionnaire measures symptoms, daily activities
… Read more

Medicines have revolutionised treatment in the NHS – can this progress be sustained?

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Dr Rupert Payne

 

by Dr Rupert Payne
Consultant Senior Lecturer in Primary Health Care
Centre for Academic Primary Care

The seventieth anniversary of the NHS has made me reflect on how proud I am to have contributed to its work for over the past twenty-odd years. Founded on 5 July 1948, the service continues to this day to operate to the same three core principles – meeting the needs of everyone, free at the point of delivery, and based on clinical need.

Aside from providing comprehensive, high-quality healthcare services to virtually the entire UK population, the other thing that the NHS is known for is the constant political bickering that carries on in the background, with criticisms about chronic under-funding and stealth privatisation. However, these are not new issues, with medicines an important reason for the challenges the NHS now faces.

In a response to concerns about rising costs, perhaps the first … Read more

Can we eliminate human papilloma virus?

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by Dr Sam Merriel
GP and Honorary Lecturer
Centre for Academic Primary Care

and

 

Dr Joanna Kesten
Senior Research Associate
NIHR Health Protection Research Unit in Evaluation of Interventions

Researchers from the Centre for Academic Primary Care and Population Health Sciences, Bristol Medical School, with colleagues from Queens University Belfast, Ulster University, and Southampton University, have published an editorial in the British Journal of General Practice (BJGP) in response to Public Health England’s (PHE) recommendation to roll out a targeted Human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination programme for men who have sex with men (MSM) through genitourinary medicine (GUM) and HIV clinics across England. 

The editorial argues that although this announcement is a positive step, it would be more effective to follow more recent recommendations to introduce gender neutral HPV vaccination to achieve total elimination of HPV, rather than a reduction. The PHE proposal means MSM who do … Read more

Penicillin was discovered 90 years ago – and despite resistance, the future looks good for antibiotics

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by Professor Alastair Hay
Professor of Primary Care
Centre for Academic Primary Care

When the NHS turned 70 this year, I was reminded of another anniversary which has had an enormous impact on healthcare over many years. Penicillin is 90 this year.

Discovered in September 1928 by Alexander Fleming, it was first used as a cure when George Paine treated eye infections with it in 1930. A method for mass production was devised by Howard Florey and Ernst Chain in 1940, and it was first mass produced in 1942, with half of that total supply used for one patient being treated for streptococcal septicaemia.

In 1944, 2.3m doses were produced in time for the Normandy landings of World War II. And it was then that the miracle of penicillin became clear. Soldiers who had previously died from septicaemia were surviving.

Expectations rose. If penicillin could cure septicaemia, what … Read more

‘Medical education with a global perspective’

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A first-time view of the Association for the Study of Medical Education Conference

Photo of Dr Juliet Brown

 

by Dr Juliet Brown
Teaching Fellow in Primary Care
Centre for Academic Primary Care

 

Conferences are a microcosm of collaboration, critique and niche scholarship, which can sometimes seem a world away from ‘real life’.  Yet I always come away from them feeling enthused, energised, and with a new sense of purpose.

This year I attended the Association for the Study of Medical Education (ASME) annual conference for the first time, and I’m happy to say, it lived up to expectations.

I was one of a team of five, along with others from the wider Bristol Medical School (and Academies). With so many sessions to choose from, we deployed ourselves at different plenary, parallel and poster sessions. The theme was ‘Medical Education with a Global Perspective’.

It was great to hear and learn from international … Read more

What will the NIHR look like at 70?

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by Dr Matthew Ridd
Reader in Primary Health Care
Centre for Academic Primary Care
@riddmj

 

As the NHS celebrates its 70th birthday, I hope that in another 58 years there will be similar celebrations and appreciation when its research arm, the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR), turns 70.

In a recent BMJ poll marking the 70th anniversary of the NHS, ‘research’ came last out of a top 10 NHS achievements. However, competition was stiff, ‘being free at point of use’ coming top. As a GP and NIHR post-doctoral fellow, I felt conflicted: should I vote for general practice or research? I admit to voting for the former – primary care needs every plaudit it can get currently – 90% of contacts in the NHS, for less than 9% of the NHS budget, and all that.

So, if the adolescent NIHR, as progeny of the NHS, is to survive … Read more

Redesigning primary care for the people who use it

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Unveiling the results of the 3D trial for patients with multimorbidity in general practice

Blog authors

 

by Chris Salibsury, Peter Bower, Stewart Mercer and Bruce Guthrie
@prof_tweet

There is good agreement about the sort of care that people with multimorbidity need. But can it be delivered in the busy setting of general practice, and does it improve outcomes? In this blog we discuss the results of the 3D trial, the largest study of an intervention for multimorbidity published to date.

Managing multimorbidity is a litmus test for modern health care systems. Patients with many long-term conditions face major challenges in managing their conditions and need significant support, which means that these patients are often associated with high costs.

Despite the complexity of caring for these patients, there is also significant agreement about what sort of care they need. Many authors have highlighted that patient-centred care is crucial, with a … Read more

Setting the priorities for advanced heart failure research

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by Dr Rachel Johnson
Clinical Research Fellow
Centre for Academic Primary Care
@rjohnsonridd

 

This week sees the launch of the James Lind Alliance Advanced Heart Failure Priority Setting Partnership Survey to gather research ideas from those living or working with advanced heart failure.

The clinical academic’s view

When, alongside clinical academic colleagues, I began to think about setting up a process to establish the top research priorities for heart failure, I was intrigued by the thought that I had no idea what people living with heart failure would choose as their priorities.

As a doctor interested in heart disease, I have worked with many people who have heart failure. I feel I have a good sense of the medical aspects of the condition, and, to some extent, the patient experience. And yet, when I thought about what patients and their families might identify as the main problems that … Read more

Finding a better way to identify children experiencing domestic violence

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by Dr Natalia Lewis
Research Fellow
Centre for Academic Primary Care
@DV_Bristol

 

Around one in five children in the UK have been exposed to domestic violence or abuse between their parents or caregivers. When adults are involved in an abusive relationship, their children bear the consequences.

The effects of domestic violence on a child can range from emotional and behavioural problems to physical injury and death when children are caught up in the violence between adults.

Even when not directly involved, children’s exposure continues through witnessing and being aware of the violence – and through its health, social and financial consequences.

Health and social care workers are often the first professionals to have contact with a child experiencing these situations. This could be when the abused parent seeks help, or when children undergo health checks. It can happen during assessments for emotional or behavioural problems, or when social services, … Read more

Multimorbidity Treatment Burden Questionnaire (MTBQ) – a new measure of treatment burden

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By Dr Polly Duncan
and
Professor Chris Salisbury
Centre for Academic Primary Care
@polly_duncan
@prof_tweet

We have developed a new, simply-worded, concise questionnaire – the Multimorbidity Treatment Burden Questionnaire (MTBQ) – to measure treatment burden in patients with multimorbidity (multiple long-term conditions).

Treatment burden is the perceived effort of looking after one’s health and the impact this has on day-to-day life. It includes everything that the patient has to do to look after their health including: ordering, collecting and taking medicines; coordinating and arranging transport for, and attending, health appointments with multiple health professionals; monitoring blood sugar or blood pressure levels; learning about own health conditions; and taking on lifestyle advice.

To understand how new health care interventions impact on treatment burden, we need to be able to measure it. A recent study published in the Annals of Family Medicine highlighted treatment burden as one of the core outcome measures … Read more