Skip to main content

Main menu

  • HOME
  • ONLINE FIRST
  • CURRENT ISSUE
  • ALL ISSUES
  • AUTHORS & REVIEWERS
  • SUBSCRIBE
  • RESOURCES
    • About BJGP
    • Conference
    • Advertising
    • BJGP Life
    • eLetters
    • Librarian information
    • Alerts
    • Resilience
    • Video
    • Audio
    • COVID-19 Clinical Solutions
  • RCGP
    • BJGP for RCGP members
    • BJGP Open
    • RCGP eLearning
    • InnovAIT Journal
    • Jobs and careers
    • RCGP e-Portfolio

User menu

  • Subscriptions
  • Alerts
  • Log in

Search

  • Advanced search
British Journal of General Practice
Advertisement
  • RCGP
    • BJGP for RCGP members
    • BJGP Open
    • RCGP eLearning
    • InnovAIT Journal
    • Jobs and careers
    • RCGP e-Portfolio
  • Subscriptions
  • Alerts
  • Log in
  • Follow bjgp on Twitter
  • Visit bjgp on Facebook
  • Blog
  • Listen to BJGP podcast
Advertisement
British Journal of General Practice

Advanced Search

  • HOME
  • ONLINE FIRST
  • CURRENT ISSUE
  • ALL ISSUES
  • AUTHORS & REVIEWERS
  • SUBSCRIBE
  • RESOURCES
    • About BJGP
    • Conference
    • Advertising
    • BJGP Life
    • eLetters
    • Librarian information
    • Alerts
    • Resilience
    • Video
    • Audio
    • COVID-19 Clinical Solutions
The Back Pages

RCGP Research Paper of the Year 2005

Equal but different

Amanda Howe
British Journal of General Practice 2006; 56 (528): 550.
Amanda Howe
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • Article
  • Info
  • eLetters
  • PDF
Loading

This year's field was the strongest ever, with 32 submissions, 10 short listed papers of exceptional quality, and two joint winners – not following a precedent, but once again equally rated after three rounds of due consideration by the panel. The winning papers were seen as being commendably clear, well written, and as making significant recommendations for routine clinical practice. They were also very different—one with a strong basic science link, focusing on the common clinical challenge of conjunctivitis; and the other on the equally common but perhaps more complex field of primary health care provision to patients with enduring mental illnesses. The methods for both were rigorous, appropriate and accurate, the lead authors of both FRCGP, and both studies done in and with the explicit cooperation of many health professionals.

The research teams were multidisciplinary, and the studies represented a huge amount of work, involving 326 patients from 12 practices for the Rose paper,1 and 18 focus groups with a total of 92 participants (Lester et al).2 Congratulations are due to the researchers, all participants, the supporting university departments, and the journals which published these papers—the BMJ, and (for the first time for Research Paper of the Year) the Lancet.

So, what of the findings? Patients with mental health problems often make primary care teams feel helpless in the face of their suffering and challenging problems, but this study found that such patients value the core characteristics of general practice—someone who knows them, listens, and access to care when required. Health professionals have accepted the value of patient review and monitoring, and could understand the highly charged views of patients on need for access, while the patients' views on how hard it is to be rational and organised enough to make best use of the services, without additional help, should be a point for discussion for all primary care teams. The most poignant difference in views was between the health professionals' assumption of chronicity and the patients' insistence on the hope of recovery through continuing active self-help and interventions. There were telling indications that any move to specific mental health providers within practices may disrupt ongoing relationships formed through personal care, and teams should be very mindful of the wishes expressed by service users in this study to retain choice and flexibility of contact.

Choice is a challenge of the other winner's findings—the choice of GPs to listen to the evidence base, and stop prescribing antibiotics for conjunctivitis; and the choice of parents to accept this advice. The study used patient records to measure the clinical resolution, and this again represents a significant input by the public to research. The importance of carrying out studies in primary care to gain ecological validity is exemplified by this study, and its conclusions are suitably cautious—pointing out that a different infective agent (Chlamydia trachomatis) might make these findings more applicable to some populations than others, and that lubrication in itself may have important benefits for symptom resolution.

Chairing the panel presents significant challenges. Primary care research now produces excellent papers drawing on multiple worldviews and methods. From epidemiological work on presentation of bowel cancer, through the costs and benefits of new intermediate care models, and the subtleties of linguistic framing of symptoms as physical or psychological, the panel drew both debate and pleasure from the excellent papers reviewed, and both winners were hotly pursued by other competitors at every point on the process of selection. We are fortunate in the energies of those who research, who review, who publish, and who sponsor the award. Well done to all concerned—you can be proud.

  • © British Journal of General Practice, 2006.

REFERENCES

  1. ↵
    1. Rose PW,
    2. Harnden A,
    3. Brueggermann AB,
    4. et al.
    (2005) Chloramphenical treatment for acute infective conjunctivitis in children in primary care: a randomised double-blind placebo controlled trial. Lancet 366:37–43.
    OpenUrlCrossRefPubMed
  2. ↵
    1. Lester H,
    2. Tritter JQ,
    3. Sorohan H
    (2005) Patients and health professionals' views on primary care for people with serious mental illness: focus group study. BMJ 330:1122.
    OpenUrlAbstract/FREE Full Text
Back to top
Previous ArticleNext Article

In this issue

British Journal of General Practice: 56 (528)
British Journal of General Practice
Vol. 56, Issue 528
July 2006
  • Table of Contents
  • Index by author
Download PDF
Article Alerts
Or,
sign in or create an account with your email address
Email Article

Thank you for recommending British Journal of General Practice.

NOTE: We only request your email address so that the person to whom you are recommending the page knows that you wanted them to see it, and that it is not junk mail. We do not capture any email address.

Enter multiple addresses on separate lines or separate them with commas.
RCGP Research Paper of the Year 2005
(Your Name) has forwarded a page to you from British Journal of General Practice
(Your Name) thought you would like to see this page from British Journal of General Practice.
CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.
Citation Tools
RCGP Research Paper of the Year 2005
Amanda Howe
British Journal of General Practice 2006; 56 (528): 550.

Citation Manager Formats

  • BibTeX
  • Bookends
  • EasyBib
  • EndNote (tagged)
  • EndNote 8 (xml)
  • Medlars
  • Mendeley
  • Papers
  • RefWorks Tagged
  • Ref Manager
  • RIS
  • Zotero

Share
RCGP Research Paper of the Year 2005
Amanda Howe
British Journal of General Practice 2006; 56 (528): 550.
del.icio.us logo Digg logo Reddit logo Twitter logo CiteULike logo Facebook logo Google logo Mendeley logo
  • Tweet Widget
  • Facebook Like
  • Google Plus One
  • Mendeley logo Mendeley

Jump to section

  • Top
  • Article
    • REFERENCES
  • Info
  • eLetters
  • PDF

More in this TOC Section

The Back Pages

  • How to protect general practice from child protection
  • Who Is My Patient?
  • Working with vulnerable families in deprived areas
Show more The Back Pages

Reportage

  • Family medicine into the future: blending health and cultures
  • Sustainable primary care
  • EDO - called to the dance!
Show more Reportage

Related Articles

Cited By...

Advertisement

BJGP Life

BJGP Open

 

@BJGPjournal's Likes on Twitter

 
 

British Journal of General Practice

NAVIGATE

  • Home
  • Current Issue
  • All Issues
  • Online First
  • Authors & reviewers

RCGP

  • BJGP for RCGP members
  • BJGP Open
  • RCGP eLearning
  • InnovAiT Journal
  • Jobs and careers
  • RCGP e-Portfolio

MY ACCOUNT

  • RCGP members' login
  • Subscriber login
  • Activate subscription
  • Terms and conditions

NEWS AND UPDATES

  • About BJGP
  • Alerts
  • RSS feeds
  • Facebook
  • Twitter

AUTHORS & REVIEWERS

  • Submit an article
  • Writing for BJGP: research
  • Writing for BJGP: other sections
  • BJGP editorial process & policies
  • BJGP ethical guidelines
  • Peer review for BJGP

CUSTOMER SERVICES

  • Advertising
  • Contact subscription agent
  • Copyright
  • Librarian information

CONTRIBUTE

  • BJGP Life
  • eLetters
  • Feedback

CONTACT US

BJGP Journal Office
RCGP
30 Euston Square
London NW1 2FB
Tel: +44 (0)20 3188 7679
Email: journal@rcgp.org.uk

British Journal of General Practice is an editorially-independent publication of the Royal College of General Practitioners
© 2021 British Journal of General Practice

Print ISSN: 0960-1643
Online ISSN: 1478-5242