Publications by authors named "Merethe Kirstine Andersen"

Background: Patients' hopes and expectations for low back pain treatment influence their consultation experiences and treatment outcomes. These hopes and expectations may evolve over time, potentially leading to a shift in what patients consider important before and after a consultation. Understanding the distinction between hopes and expectations, and how they evolve is important for improving patient care.

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Objectives: To explore the elements and composition of care provided by general practitioners (GPs), physiotherapists (PTs) and chiropractors (DCs) to patients with low back pain (LBP).

Design: Observational study.

Setting: Primary care setting, Denmark.

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Objective: Clinical guidelines for managing low back pain (LBP) emphasise patient information, patient education and physical activity as key components. Little is known about who actually receives information. This study investigates to what extent information at the first consultation with general practitioner (GP), chiropractor (DC) and physiotherapist (PT) in Danish primary care is provided to patients with LBP.

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Introduction: Skin cancers are common in European populations and generate considerable costs. In Denmark, patients with suspicious skin lesions will usually consult their general practitioner who may refer the patient to a dermatologist or plastic surgeon if necessary. However, it is also possible for the general practitioner to take and send dermoscopic and macroscopic photographs of the suspicious skin lesion for evaluation by a dermatologist, so-called teledermoscopy.

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Objectives: Defensive medicine has originally been defined as motivated by fear of malpractice litigation. However, the term is frequently used in Europe where most countries have a no-fault malpractice system. The objectives of this systematic review were to explore the definition of the term 'defensive medicine' in European original medical literature and to identify the motives stated therein.

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Importance: Low socioeconomic status (SES) has been identified as a risk factor for the development of dementia. However, few studies have focused on the association between SES and dementia diagnostic evaluation on a population level.

Objective: To investigate whether household income (HHI) is associated with dementia diagnosis and cognitive severity at the time of diagnosis.

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Objective: To investigate whether accreditation of general practice in Denmark promotes patient-reported quality of care and patient satisfaction.

Design: A national cluster randomised case control study based on an online version of the Danish Patients Evaluate Practice questionnaire. Mixed effects ordered logit regression models taking account of clustering of patients in different municipalities were used in the analyses.

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Introduction: The term defensive medicine, referring to actions motivated primarily by litigious concerns, originates from the USA and has been used in medical research literature since the late 1960s. Differences in medical legal systems between the US and most European countries with no tort legislation raise the question whether the US definition of defensive medicine holds true in Europe.

Aim: To present the protocol of a systematic review investigating variations in definitions and understandings of the term 'defensive medicine' in European research articles.

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Objectives: This study aims to analyse the associations between general practitioner (GP) retirement, job satisfaction and attitudes towards a mandatory accreditation scheme. External interventions such as mandatory accreditation schemes may be perceived negatively by GPs, causing early retirement from practice. In Denmark, almost half of the GPs had negative attitudes prior to the implementation of a mandatory accreditation scheme, constituting a possible risk of early practice retirement.

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Background: Few areas of medicine demonstrate such international divergence as child development screening and surveillance. Many countries have nationally mandated surveillance policies, but the content of programmes and mechanisms for delivery vary enormously. The cost of programmes is substantial but no economic evaluations have been carried out.

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Aim: Preventive home visits (PHVs) to frail elderly patients, provided by the GP, have been widely promoted in many health care systems, including the Danish system. This study investigates to what extent PHVs are provided to patients with characteristics of frailty.

Methods: During a four-week period, GPs and their staff in three different parts of Denmark filled in a questionnaire for each patient aged 75 years or older who attended the clinic or received a home visit.

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Introduction: The objective of this study was to analyse Danish general practitioners' (GPs) a priori attitudes and expectations towards a nationwide mandatory accreditation programme.

Methods: This study is based on a nationwide electronic survey comprising all Danish GPs (n = 3,403).

Results: A total of 1,906 (56%) GPs completed the questionnaire.

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Spinal cord injuries (SCI) affect all organs and may cause multiple sequelae. Complications after SCI can be life-threatening and socially disabling. Furthermore, a spinal cord injury is often a chronic condition and the patient may have contact with both the general practitioner and several departments in a hospital.

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