Introduction: In 1998 the Italian Society of General Practice established an Institute of Research named Health Search (HS). It consists of a network of general practitioners (GPs), a school in which they receive specific training, and a database for collecting data from their daily clinical practice. The GPs who are HS researchers join the project on a voluntary basis and agree to use unique software for clinical data management and to regularly send their data to the server to which they are connected. The GPs included in the network were selected on a regional basis. Objective: To evaluate: (a) the GPs’ clinical practice management with respect to characteristics such as past experience in education and practice in medical research, the organisation of their professional practice, including the clinical equipment they routinely use, and their previous use of the computer for clinical data registration and management; and (b) the advantage and reliability of GPs’ databases used for epidemiological purposes. Methods and Results: A total of 695 GPs are included in the network (85.6% males, mean age 46.7 years), corresponding to about 12 doctors per one million inhabitants in Italy. Of these, 69.0% have at least one specialisation. The current patient population in 2001 is about 933 350 subjects (52.1% females) recorded by the 553 physicians connected to the database. As a preliminary evaluation of the completeness of the database for epidemiological purposes, we assessed the prevalence of hypertension among the GPs’ patient populations: 5.4% of the subjects were affected by this disease with a standard deviation between GPs of 2.2%. The prevalence of hypertension varied among the GPs, and it was influenced by the proportion of patients over 64 years of age in each GP’s population list, whereas it was not associated with the GP’s frequency of use of the software or completeness of the patient’s data registration.

Health Search, the research institute of the Italian Society of General Practice: the creation of a research database in general practice

SCATIGNA, MARIA;FABIANI, Leila
2004-01-01

Abstract

Introduction: In 1998 the Italian Society of General Practice established an Institute of Research named Health Search (HS). It consists of a network of general practitioners (GPs), a school in which they receive specific training, and a database for collecting data from their daily clinical practice. The GPs who are HS researchers join the project on a voluntary basis and agree to use unique software for clinical data management and to regularly send their data to the server to which they are connected. The GPs included in the network were selected on a regional basis. Objective: To evaluate: (a) the GPs’ clinical practice management with respect to characteristics such as past experience in education and practice in medical research, the organisation of their professional practice, including the clinical equipment they routinely use, and their previous use of the computer for clinical data registration and management; and (b) the advantage and reliability of GPs’ databases used for epidemiological purposes. Methods and Results: A total of 695 GPs are included in the network (85.6% males, mean age 46.7 years), corresponding to about 12 doctors per one million inhabitants in Italy. Of these, 69.0% have at least one specialisation. The current patient population in 2001 is about 933 350 subjects (52.1% females) recorded by the 553 physicians connected to the database. As a preliminary evaluation of the completeness of the database for epidemiological purposes, we assessed the prevalence of hypertension among the GPs’ patient populations: 5.4% of the subjects were affected by this disease with a standard deviation between GPs of 2.2%. The prevalence of hypertension varied among the GPs, and it was influenced by the proportion of patients over 64 years of age in each GP’s population list, whereas it was not associated with the GP’s frequency of use of the software or completeness of the patient’s data registration.
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11697/40397
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