Preventive and health‐promoting activities in general practices in Germany: A scoping review

Abstract

General practices are rooted in the local community and considered to be particularly well‐positioned for engaging in preventive and health‐promoting activities. The overall aim of the scoping review is to identify priorities and gaps in research published in the past 20 years on preventive and health‐promoting activities provided by general practitioners or their teams in general practices in Germany. MEDLINE and Embase databases were systematically searched in November 2020. Papers were selected in dual‐review mode and extracted in single‐review mode. Data analysis was finished by May 2021. In total, 530 papers were included in the synthesis. Little research has been carried out into collaboration opportunities both within the general practice team and in communities as a whole, with specialists (18%), hospitals (9%), and health insurance companies (6%) being the most frequent cooperation partners of GPs. 15%–20% of papers each dealt with ‘early detection’, ‘information provision’ and ‘cardiovascular prevention’. Secondary (53%) and tertiary prevention (43%) was more often the subject of research than primary (39%) and quaternary prevention (15%). Healthy subjects (26%) were less often studied than people with pre‐existing conditions (42%) and risk factors (48%). Little information was available on preventive activities in terms of gender, young people, migration background, housing conditions or educational background. Personal counselling (15%) was the most frequently described approach to health promotion in general practices, along with printed information materials (10%). This scoping review provides information on which to base targeted interventions and future research that can contribute towards transforming general practices into promoters of health within the community.

Zum Potential von Präventionsberatern im hausärztlichen Setting: Evaluationsstudie einer Intervention im Land Brandenburg

“…Hausärzte sind aufgrund ihres regelmäßigen Kontakts mit einem Großteil der Bevölkerung für die Prävention von besonderer Bedeutung [8]. Vor allem die persönliche Beratung spielt in der Hausarztpraxis eine wichtige Bedeutung im Bereich der Prävention [9]. Hierbei wurden bis dato zahlreiche Instrumente erarbeitet, wie etwa motivierende Interviews, das 5A-Konzept, sowie der FRAMES-und der BATHE-Ansatz, die je nach Kontext des Patienten Anwendung finden können [10].…”