Preventive care content of consultations in different mediums

  • Research type

    Research Study

  • Full title

    How has the transition to remote consulting affected the preventive care content of primary care consultations?

  • IRAS ID

    327578

  • Contact name

    Laura Heath

  • Contact email

    laura.heath@phc.ox.ac.uk

  • Sponsor organisation

    University of Oxford / Research Governance, Ethics and Assurance

  • Duration of Study in the UK

    0 years, 11 months, 31 days

  • Research summary

    Smoking, obesity, alcohol intake, and physical inactivity bring forward the onset of chronic disease, multimorbidity, and premature death by about 6 years in the UK. Differences in the prevalence of these risk factors explain a substantial portion of the gap between rich and poor. The NHS has a key role to play in addressing this through supporting behaviour change via brief opportunistic interventions. Such brief interventions on these risk factors have been shown to be effective and cost-saving, but the rate of intervention by GPs, who are best placed to do them, is too low. The shift to remote consulting may have reduced opportunities for this.

    This study aims to quantify the delivery brief interventions in different types of consultations (face to face and remote) by recording routine consultations in primary care. GPs give brief interventions alongside care for other conditions, and the differing nature of different communication methods may mean that care is delivered differently or not at all. Secondly, we aim to examine opportunities and challenges to delivering brief interventions using different consultation mediums by interviewing GPs.

  • REC name

    London - Camden & Kings Cross Research Ethics Committee

  • REC reference

    23/PR/1533

  • Date of REC Opinion

    23 Jan 2024

  • REC opinion

    Further Information Favourable Opinion