Dataset Information

Helping people discontinue long-term antidepressants: views of health professionals in UK primary care.

ABSTRACT: OBJECTIVE:The aims of this paper were to identify, characterise and explain clinician factors that shape decision-making around antidepressant discontinuation in UK primary care. DESIGN:Four focus groups and three interviews were conducted and analysed using thematic analysis. PARTICIPANTS:Twenty-one general practitioners (GPs), four GP assistants, seven nurses and six community mental health team workers and psychotherapists took part in focus groups and interviews. SETTING:Participants were recruited from seven primary care regions and two National Health Service Trusts providing community mental health services in the South of England. RESULTS:Participants highlighted a number of barriers and enablers to discussing discontinuation with patients. They held a range of views around responsibility, with some suggesting it was the responsibility of the health professional (HP) to broach the subject, and others suggesting responsibility rested with the patients. HPs were concerned about destabilising the current situation, discussed how continuity and knowing the patient facilitated discontinuation talks, and discussed how confidence in their professional skills and knowledge affected whether they elected to raise discontinuation in consultations. CONCLUSIONS:Findings indicate a need to consider support for HPs in the management of antidepressant medication and discussions of discontinuation in particular. They may also benefit from support around their fears of patient relapse and awareness of when and how to initiate discussions about discontinuation with their patients.

SUBMITTER: Bowers HM

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6615882 | biostudies-other | 2019 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-other

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Helping people discontinue long-term antidepressants: views of health professionals in UK primary care.

Bowers Hannah M HM Williams Samantha J SJ Geraghty Adam W A AWA Maund Emma E O'brien Wendy W Leydon Geraldine G May Carl R CR Kendrick Tony T

BMJ open 20190704 7

<h4>Objective</h4>The aims of this paper were to identify, characterise and explain clinician factors that shape decision-making around antidepressant discontinuation in UK primary care.<h4>Design</h4>Four focus groups and three interviews were conducted and analysed using thematic analysis.<h4>Participants</h4>Twenty-one general practitioners (GPs), four GP assistants, seven nurses and six community mental health team workers and psychotherapists took part in focus groups and interviews.<h4>Set ...[more]

PMID: 31278099

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Project description:Clinical practice recommendations increasingly advocate that older patients' life expectancy be considered to inform a number of clinical decisions. It is not clear how primary care practitioners approach these recommendations in their clinical practice.To explore the range of perspectives from primary care practitioners on long-term prognosis, defined as prognosis regarding life expectancy in the range of years, in their care of older adults.A qualitative, semistructured interview study was conducted in a large group practice with multiple sites in rural, urban, and suburban settings. Twenty-eight primary care practitioners were interviewed; 20 of these participants (71%) reported that at least 25% of their patient panel was older adults. The audiorecorded discussions were transcribed and analyzed, using qualitative content analysis to identify major themes and subthemes. The study was conducted between January 30 and May 13, 2015. Data analysis was performed between June 10 and September 1, 2015.The constant comparative approach was used to qualitatively analyze the content of the transcripts.Of the 28 participants, 16 were women and 21 were white; the mean (SD) age was 46.2 (10.3) years. Twenty-six were physicians and 2 were nurse practitioners. Their time since completing clinical training was 16.0 (11.4) years. These primary care practitioners reported considering life expectancy, often in the range of 5 to 10 years, in several clinical scenarios in the care of older adults, but balanced the prognosis consideration against various other factors in decision making. In particular, patient age was found to modulate how prognosis affects the primary care practitioners' decision making, with significant reluctance among them to cease preventive care that has a long lag time to achieve benefit in younger patients despite limited life expectancy. The participants assessed life expectancy based on clinical experience rather than using validated tools and varied widely in their prognostication time frame, from 2 years to 30 years. Participants often considered prognosis without explicitly discussing it with patients and disagreed on whether and when long-term prognosis needs to be specifically discussed. The participants identified numerous barriers to incorporating prognosis in the care of older adults including uncertainty in predicting prognosis, difficulty in discussing prognosis, and concern about patient reactions.Despite clinical recommendations to increasingly incorporate patients' long-term prognosis in clinical decisions, primary care practitioners encounter several barriers and ambiguities in the implementation of these recommendations.

Project description:BackgroundDepression is a common mental health condition with considerable negative impact on health and well-being. Although antidepressants are recommended as first-line treatment, there is limited evidence regarding the cost effectiveness of long-term maintenance antidepressants for preventing relapse.ObjectivesOur objective was to calculate the mean incremental costs and quality-adjusted life-years (QALYs) over 12 months of discontinuing long-term antidepressant medication in well patients compared with maintenance, using patient-level trial data.MethodsWe conducted a cost-utility analysis of 478 participants from 150 UK general practices recruited to a randomised, double-blind trial (ANTLER). QALYs were calculated from EQ-5D-5L and 12-Item Short Form survey (SF-12) results, with primary analysis using the EQ-5D-5L value set for England. Resource use was collected from primary care patient electronic medical records and self-completed questionnaires capturing mental-health-related resource use. Costs were calculated by applying standard UK unit costs to resource use. Adjustments were made for baseline variables.ResultsParticipants randomised to discontinuation had significantly worse utility scores at 3 months (- 0.032; 95% confidence interval [CI] - 0.053 to - 0.011) but no significant difference in QALYs (- 0.011; 95% CI - 0.026 to 0.003) or costs (£3.11; 95% CI - 41.28 to 47.50) at 12 months. The probability that discontinuation was cost effective compared with maintenance was 12.9% at a threshold of £20,000 per QALY gained.ConclusionsDiscontinuation of antidepressants was unlikely to be cost effective compared with maintenance for currently well patients on long-term antidepressants. However, this analysis provides no information on the wider impact of antidepressants. Our findings provide information on the potential impact of discontinuing long-term maintenance antidepressants and facilitate improving guidance for shared patient-clinician decision making.Trial registrationEudraCT number 2015-004210-26; ISRCTN number ISRCTN15969819.

Project description:ObjectivesSignificant problems with patients engaging with diabetes self-management education (DSME) exist. The role of healthcare professionals (HCPs) has been highlighted, with a lack of enthusiasm, inadequate information provision and poor promotion of available programmes all cited as affecting patients' decisions to attend. However, little is known about HCPs' views towards DSME. This study investigates the views of HCPs towards self-management generally and self-management in the context of DSME more specifically.DesignA qualitative study using semi-structured interviews to investigate HCPs views of type 2 diabetes self-management and DSME. Data were analysed thematically and emergent themes were mapped on to the constructs of Normalisation Process Theory (NPT).SettingTwo boroughs in London, UK.ParticipantsSampling was purposive to recruit a diverse range of professional roles including GPs, practice nurses, diabetes specialist nurses, healthcare assistants (HCAs), receptionists and commissioners of care.ResultsInterviews were conducted with 22 participants. The NPT analysis demonstrated that while a self-management approach to diabetes care was viewed by HCPs as necessary and, in principle, valuable, the reality is much more complex. HCPs expressed ambivalence about pushing certain patients into self-managing, preferring to retain responsibility. There was a lack of awareness among HCPs about the content of DSME and benefits to patients. Commitment to and engagement with DSME was tempered by concerns about suitability for some patients. There was little evidence of communication between providers of group-based DSME and HCPs or of HCPs engaging in work to follow-up non-attenders.ConclusionsHCPs have concerns about the appropriateness of DSME for all patients and discussed challenges to engaging with and performing the tasks required to embed the approach within practice. DSME, as a means of supporting self-management, was considered important in theory, but there was little evidence of HCPs seeing their role as extending beyond providing referrals.

Project description:IntroductionIn the UK, primary care is seen as the optimal context for delivering care to an ageing population with a growing number of long-term conditions. However, if it is to meet these demands effectively and efficiently, a more precise understanding of existing care processes is required to ensure their configuration is based on robust evidence. This need to understand and optimise organisational performance is not unique to healthcare, and in industries such as telecommunications or finance, a methodology known as 'process mining' has become an established and successful method to identify how an organisation can best deploy resources to meet the needs of its clients and customers. Here and for the first time in the UK, we will apply it to primary care settings to gain a greater understanding of how patients with two of the most common chronic conditions are managed.Methods and analysisThe study will be conducted in three phases; first, we will apply process mining algorithms to the data held on the clinical management system of four practices of varying characteristics in the West Midlands to determine how each interacts with patients with hypertension or type 2 diabetes. Second, we will use traditional process mapping exercises at each practice to manually produce maps of care processes for the selected condition. Third, with the aid of staff and patients at each practice, we will compare and contrast the process models produced by process mining with the process maps produced via manual techniques, review differences and similarities between them and the relative importance of each. The first pilot study will be on hypertension and the second for patients diagnosed with type 2 diabetes.Ethics and disseminationEthical approval has been provided by East Midlands-Leicester South Regional Ethics Committee (REC reference 18/EM/0284). Having refined the automated production of maps of care processes, we can explore pinch points and bottlenecks, process variants and unexpected behaviour, and make informed recommendations to improve the quality and efficiency of care. The results of this study will be submitted for publication in peer-reviewed journals.

Project description:BackgroundShared medical appointments (SMAs) or group consultations have been promoted in primary care to improve workload pressures, resource-use efficiency and patient self-management of long-term conditions (LTCs). However, few studies have explored stakeholders' perspectives of this novel care delivery model in the English NHS context, particularly patients' views and experiences of SMAs.MethodSemi-structured interviews were used to explore the perspectives of stakeholders (21 patients, 17 primary care staff, 2 commissioners and 2 SMA training providers) with and without SMA experience from a range of geographical and socio-economic backgrounds in the North East and North Cumbrian region of England. Thematic analysis was conducted to examine perceptions around impact on patient care and outcomes and barriers and facilitators to implementation.ResultsThree main themes were identified: 'Value of sharing', 'Appropriateness of group setting', 'Implementation processes'. Patients experiences and perceptions of SMAs were largely positive yet several reported reservations about sharing personal information, particularly in close-knit communities where the risk of breaching confidentiality was perceived to be greater. SMAs were considered by patients and staff to be inappropriate for certain personal conditions or for some patient groups. Staff reported difficulties engaging sufficient numbers of patients to make them viable and having the resources to plan and set them up in practice. Whilst patients and staff anticipated that SMAs could deliver high quality care more efficiently than 1:1 appointments, none of the practices had evaluated the impact SMAs had on patient health outcomes or staff time.ConclusionStakeholder experiences of SMA use in English primary care are largely similar to those reported in other countries. However, several important cultural barriers were identified in this setting. Further work is needed to better understand how patient and staff perceptions, experiences and engagement with SMAs change with regular use over time. Concerns regarding staff capacity, additional resource requirements and numbers of eligible patients per practice suggest SMAs may only be feasible in some smaller practices if facilitated by primary care networks. Further mixed-method evaluations of SMAs are needed to inform the evidence base regarding the effectiveness, efficiency and feasibility of SMAs long-term and subsequently their wider roll-out in English primary care.

Project description:BackgroundThe potential for machine learning to disrupt the medical profession is the subject of ongoing debate within biomedical informatics and related fields.ObjectiveThis study aimed to explore general practitioners' (GPs') opinions about the potential impact of future technology on key tasks in primary care.MethodsIn June 2018, we conducted a Web-based survey of 720 UK GPs' opinions about the likelihood of future technology to fully replace GPs in performing 6 key primary care tasks, and, if respondents considered replacement for a particular task likely, to estimate how soon the technological capacity might emerge. This study involved qualitative descriptive analysis of written responses ("comments") to an open-ended question in the survey.ResultsComments were classified into 3 major categories in relation to primary care: (1) limitations of future technology, (2) potential benefits of future technology, and (3) social and ethical concerns. Perceived limitations included the beliefs that communication and empathy are exclusively human competencies; many GPs also considered clinical reasoning and the ability to provide value-based care as necessitating physicians' judgments. Perceived benefits of technology included expectations about improved efficiencies, in particular with respect to the reduction of administrative burdens on physicians. Social and ethical concerns encompassed multiple, divergent themes including the need to train more doctors to overcome workforce shortfalls and misgivings about the acceptability of future technology to patients. However, some GPs believed that the failure to adopt technological innovations could incur harms to both patients and physicians.ConclusionsThis study presents timely information on physicians' views about the scope of artificial intelligence (AI) in primary care. Overwhelmingly, GPs considered the potential of AI to be limited. These views differ from the predictions of biomedical informaticians. More extensive, stand-alone qualitative work would provide a more in-depth understanding of GPs' views.

Project description:OBJECTIVES:In 2012-2013, the English National Health Service mandated hospitals to conduct systematic case-finding of people with dementia among older people with unplanned admissions. The method was not defined. The aim of this study was to understand current approaches to dementia case-finding in acute hospitals in England and explore the views of healthcare professionals on perceived benefits and challenges. DESIGN:Qualitative study involving interviews, focus groups and thematic content analysis. SETTING:Primary care and secondary care across six counties in the East of England. PARTICIPANTS:Hospital staff involved in dementia case-finding and primary care staff in the catchment areas of those hospitals. RESULTS:We recruited 23 hospital staff and 36 primary care staff, including 30 general practitioners (GPs). Analysis resulted in three themes: (1) lack of consistent approaches in case-finding processes, (2) barriers between primary care and secondary care which impact on case-finding outcomes and (3) perceptions of rationale, aims and impacts of case-finding. The study shows that there were variations in how well hospitals recorded and reported outcomes to GPs. Barriers between primary care and secondary care, including GPs' lack of access to hospital investigations and lack of clarity about roles and responsibilities, impacted case-finding outcomes. Staff in secondary care were more positive about the initiative than primary care staff, and there were conflicting priorities for primary care and secondary care regarding case-finding. CONCLUSIONS:The study suggests a more evidence-based approach was needed to justify approaches to dementia case-finding. Information communicated to primary care from hospitals needs to be comprehensive, appropriate and consistent before GPs can effectively plan further investigation, treatment or care. Follow-up in primary care further requires access to options for postdiagnostic support. There is a need to evaluate the outcomes for patients and the economic impact on health and care services across settings.

Dataset Information

Helping people discontinue long-term antidepressants: views of health professionals in UK primary care.

Publications

Helping people discontinue long-term antidepressants: views of health professionals in UK primary care.

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