Understanding the decision making process of GPs about Lyme disease
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Understanding the decision making process of general practitioners (GPs) presented with Lyme disease patients. – Phase 1
IRAS ID
208815
Contact name
John S P Tulloch
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
The Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen Univeristy Hospitals NHS Trust
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 7 months, 1 days
Research summary
Lyme disease is the most widespread tick borne disease in the Northern Hemisphere. In the UK the number of people diagnosed is steadily increasing. This figure is based solely on laboratory diagnostics and not on the number of cases seen and treated by a General Practitioner (GP) in a clinic. We currently do not know how well GP’s recognise the varying presentations of Lyme disease, and what their resulting treatment, diagnostic and referral choices are.
We propose to construct a series of case studies and present these to a sample of GP’s to understand how they construct their decisions and what informs their choice of care for the patients, and how they record this in practice management systems. These pilot interviews will help us construct a questionnaire that could be emailed to GP’s across the country, so that we can gain a better understanding of GP’s choices at a national level. We aim to interview 10 GPs in the Merseyside area.
The results from this study will help us to understand how well GP’s recognise Lyme disease and how Lyme disease patients are treated. This will highlight any need for future education of GP’s in Lyme disease, so that their patients receive the best care. It will also provide us an insight in to how GP’s decision make and record this in their management systems. This will give us an understanding of how reliable practice records can be and also how GP’s record diseases with a varied and vague clinical presentation. This will inform future research of not only Lyme disease, but other conditions with similarly vague presentations.
REC name
North East - Newcastle & North Tyneside 1 Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
17/NE/0190
Date of REC Opinion
14 Jun 2017
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion