Child consultation patterns in general practice comparing "high" and "low" consulting families.

Abstract

All children's consultations with their general practitioner over a 12 month period in a small urban practice were analysed. Overall consultation rates ranged from 2.2 per child a year for 8 to 11 year olds, to 6.8 for those under 2. Families were grouped according to their average rate of new consultation for children, standardised for age. Families with higher consulting rates scored higher on an index of economic disadvantage, with mothers who scored higher on a test of "tendency to consult" and who were less educated than those in lower consulting families. The presence of any doctor-defined "significant disease" in any child was highly correlated with the family's consultation rate.

Referral to Child Psychiatry: Parent and Doctor Motives and Expectations

“…This is relevant since some referred children will remain vulnerable following the clinic's intervention and may attend the doctors frequently for somatic complaints. Although in our sample psychosocial complaints at the surgery were virtually the only "pathway to psychiatric care" (Goldberg & Huxley, 1980) for psychiatrically disturbed children, there is evidence to suggest that these children are more likely to attend surgeries for somatic complaints than others (Garralda & Bailey, 1986;Starfield, Hankin, Steinwachs, Horn, Benson, Katz & Gabriel, 1985;Campion & Gabriel, 1984).…”

Child and Family Factors Influencing the Clinical Referral of Children with Hyperactivity: A Research Note

“…The parenting attitudes and behaviour of all parents was assessed by standardised semi-structured interview methods (Quinton, Rutter, & Liddle, 1984) in addition to the 91-item Child-Rearing Practices Report (CRPR: Block, 1981), Parents were interviewed about eight aspects of parenting, including; coping efficiency (0-8-point scale), frequency of positive interaction (0-3), disciplinary indulgence (0-5), disciplinary aggression (0-5), sensitivity (0-4), control (0-4), supervision (0-4) and inter-parental consistency (0-3), Significantly high levels of agreement have been found between interview ratings of parenting quality and direct observational measures of parenting behaviour (Dowdney, Mrazek, , The five 7-point CRPR subscales of interest were: positive affect, negative affect, rational guiding, nonpunitive punishment, and authoritarian control. The CRPR has good test-retest reliability (Block, 1981) and correlates well with direct observations of mother-child behaviour (Dekovic, Janssens, & Gerris, 1991;Kochanska, Kuczynski, & Radke-Yarrow, 1989), Pamiiy context. The 28-item version of the General Health Questionnaire (Goldberg & Hillier, 1979), the Dyadic Adjustment Scale (Spanier, 1976), and the Significant Others Scale (Power, Champion, & Ads, 1988) were used to measure parent's psychological wellbeing, marital adjustment, and social support.…”

Understanding the culture of prescribing: qualitative study of general practitioners' and patients' perceptions of antibiotics for sore throats

“…Our goal was to interview doctors and patients from practices reflecting factors known to be associated with prescribing levels 6 29 30 rather than from statistically representative samples. We constructed a sampling frame by stratifying all practices in the Bro Taf Health Authority (n=133) into low, medium, and high deprivation groups (based on Townsend scores) and into small, medium, and large practices (based on numbers of partners).…”