Journal
BRITISH JOURNAL OF GENERAL PRACTICE
Volume 72, Issue 717, Pages E269-E275Publisher
ROYAL COLL GENERAL PRACTITIONERS
DOI: 10.3399/BJGP.2021.0493
Keywords
diabetes mellitus; hypertension; lifestyle advice; primary health care; weight loss
Categories
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Only a minority of patients with diabetes or hypertension report receiving lifestyle advice or have this recorded in their medical records. Interventions beyond guidelines are needed to increase the delivery of behavioural interventions to treat these conditions.
Background Guidelines recommend that GPs give patients lifestyle advice to manage hypertension and diabetes. Increasing evidence shows that this is an effective and practical treatment for these conditions, but it is unclear whether GPs offer this support. Aim To investigate trends in the percentage of patients with hypertension/diabetes receiving lifestyle advice versus medication. Design and setting This was a trend analysis of self-reported data from the annual Health Survey for England (HSE) (2003-2017) and GP-recorded data from the QResearch database (2002-2016). Method The percentage of patients with hypertension or diabetes who received lifestyle advice or medication was calculated in each year. Associations between likelihood of receiving lifestyle advice and characteristics were assessed using multivariable logistic regression. Results The percentage of patients receiving lifestyle advice was consistently lower than those receiving medication in both self-reported and medical records. There was consistent evidence of increasing trends in the percentage of patients with hypertension receiving lifestyle advice (HSE 13.8% to 20.1%; Ptrend <0.001; QResearch 11.0% to 22.7%; Ptrend < 0.001). For diabetes, there was a non-significant decline in self-reported receipt of lifestyle advice (45.0% to 27.9%; Ptrend = 0.111) and a significant increase in medically recorded delivery of this advice (20.7% to 40.5%; Ptrend < 0.001). Patients with hypertension who were overweight or obese were more likely to receive lifestyle advice than those of a healthy weight, whereas the opposite was true for diabetes. Conclusion Only a minority of patients with diabetes or hypertension report receiving lifestyle advice or have this recorded in their medical records. Interventions beyond guidelines are needed to increase the delivery of behavioural interventions to treat these conditions.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available