General practitioner

The effects of bereavement are unique and support must be individually tailored. The role of the general practitioner (GP) in paediatric cancer palliative care is wide-ranging and challenging, yet little is known about offered bereavement support in this context. We carried out an in-depth secondary analysis of text relating to bereavement support from a semi-structured interview study exploring GPs’ and parents’ experiences.

BACKGROUND: General Practitioners are considered to be well placed to monitor home-care settings and to respond specifically to family caregivers. To do this, they must be sensitive to the needs and expectations of caregivers. In order to determine the current status of GP care in terms of the support given to family caregivers, a series of studies were conducted to gather the perspectives of both caregivers and GPs.

Background: Governments are being challenged to integrate at least part of dementia care into primary care. However, little is known about the current role of general practitioners (GPs) regarding dementia care, especially in countries that do not have dementia strategies in place. Objective: The aim of this study was to explore the experiences of GPs, persons with dementia and their family carers in Portuguese primary care settings, to better understand GPs' contribution to dementia care.

The lay caregiving role is integral to advanced cancer care but places carers' health at risk. A supportive General Practitioner (GP) can help primary lay carers manage their health, if they disclose their concerns. A Needs Assessment Tool for Caregivers (NAT-C) was developed for carers to self-complete and use as the basis of a GP consultation, then tested in a randomised controlled trial. This paper reports a qualitative research study to determine the usefulness and acceptability of the NAT-C in the Australian primary care setting.

Background: Oldest-old persons frequently receive potentially inappropriate medication. Medication use takes place under the patients' informal caregivers' influence. We explored informal caregivers' perspectives on medication of (relatively) independent oldest-old persons to identify starting points for safer medication prescription/handling.; Methods: In this exploratory qualitative interview study we interviewed 45 informal caregivers of 45 oldest-old persons (23 with potentially inappropriate medication/22 without potentially inappropriate medication).