How people with chronic illnesses view their care in general practice: a qualitative study.

Objectives: To explore the perceptions of patients with chronic conditions about the nature and quality of their care in general practice.

Design: Qualitative study using focus group methods conducted 1 June to 30 November 2002.

Participants And Setting: 76 consumers in 12 focus groups in New South Wales and South Australia.

Providing healthcare for people with chronic illness: the views of Australian GPs.

Objectives: To explore general practitioners' views on chronic-disease care: the difficulties and rewards, the needs of patients, the impact of government incentive payments, and the changes needed to improve chronic-disease management.

Design: Qualitative study, involving semi-structured questions administered to 10 focus groups of GPs, conducted from April to October 2002.

Participants And Setting: 54 GPs from both urban and rural practices in New South Wales and South Australia.

Quality of care provided by general practitioners using or not using Division-based diabetes registers.

Objective: To compare the quality of care provided by general practitioners participating in diabetes shared-care registers with that provided by GPs not using registers.

Design: Cross-sectional comparison using Health Insurance Commission (HIC) data for patients attending the GPs.

Participants And Setting: 155 GPs using diabetes registers, 459 GPs not using registers, and their patients with diabetes (as identified by HIC criteria).