- Title
- Investigation of fatigue by Australian general practice registrars: a cross-sectional study
- Creator
- Morgan, Simon; Henderson, Kim M.; Tapley, Amanda; Thomson, Allison; Wilson, Jessica; Scott, John; Spike, Neil A.; McArthur, Lawrie; van Driel, Mieke L.; Magin, Parker J.
- Relation
- Journal of Primary Health Care Vol. 7, Issue 2, p. 109-116
- Publisher Link
- http://dx.doi.org/10.1071/HC15109
- Publisher
- Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners
- Resource Type
- journal article
- Date
- 2015
- Description
- Introduction: Fatigue is the most common undifferentiated problem presenting in general practice. Previous studies have shown that this presentation leads to multiple investigations. There is no published literature describing the management of patients with fatigue by general practice (GP) registrars. Aim: To document the investigation-ordering behaviour of GP registrars in managing patients with a new diagnosis of unexplained fatigue. Methods: This was a cross-sectional analysis of data from Registrar Clinical Encounters in Training (ReCEnT), an ongoing cohort study of GP registrars' consultations. We established the prevalence of new diagnoses of unexplained fatigue and associations with that diagnosis, the rate of test ordering and the number and types of investigations ordered. Results: 644 registrars contributed data from 68 986 encounters. In 0.78% of patient encounters, a new diagnosis of unexplained fatigue was made. Pathology was ordered in 78.4% of these problems (versus 18.1% in non-fatigue problems), at a rate of 488 tests per 100 new fatigue problems. Discussion: Our study suggests that unexplained fatigue elicits a non-rational approach to test ordering by registrars. These findings contribute to the understanding of GP registrar management of fatigue, and undifferentiated presentations more broadly, and suggest educational approaches to improve practice, including dealing with uncertainty.
- Subject
- diagnostic tests; routine; education; medical; family practice; fatigue; general practice
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1314789
- Identifier
- uon:22825
- Identifier
- ISSN:1172-6164
- Rights
- Articles are published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 (CC-BY-NC-ND) licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/deed.en_US). Under this licence, readers can share, redistribute and reuse the article without permission as long as it is not done for commercial purposes and as long as the article is not changed. Those wanting to make derivatives or use content commercially can contact us to discuss your needs. When sharing or reusing any article, attribution must be given to the original source. Alternative Creative Commons licences are available on request.
- Language
- eng
- Full Text
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