[Entry into general practice training: no relation with focus on primary care in the undergraduate curriculum].

Objective: To investigate differences between medical faculties in the proportion of graduates entering general practice (GP) training, and to analyse whether this is related to the degree of orientation towards general practice of Dutch medical undergraduate curricula.

Design: Retrospective cohort study.

Methods: Several databases were used to investigate which percentage of medical graduates per faculty entered the GP training programme between 1989 and 2001.

Early student-patient contacts in general practice: an approach based on educational principles.

Background: Clinical teaching and learning is generally seen as an educationally sound approach, but the clinical environment does not always offer optimal conditions to facilitate students' learning processes.

Aims: To show how insights on constructing a good learning environment for student-patient contacts in real practice can be translated into an undergraduate clinical general practice programme in Year 3 and to study its feasibility.

Method: Literature search, yielding starting points for the development of the new programme and questionnaire evaluation of the programme.

Vitalum study design: RCT evaluating the efficacy of tailored print communication and telephone motivational interviewing on multiple health behaviors.

Background: A large proportion of adults fail to meet public health guidelines for physical activity as well as fruit, vegetable and fat intake. Interventions are needed to improve these health behaviors. Both computer tailoring and motivational interviewing have shown themselves to be promising techniques for health behavior change.

The effect of alcohol intake on cardiovascular disease and mortality disappeared after taking lifetime drinking and covariates into account.

Background: Current alcohol intake has been associated with cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. The effect of past and lifetime drinking has received less attention. In the present study, the impact of current, past and lifetime drinking on cardiovascular events and all-cause mortality has been assessed.

Coping style mediates impact of stress on alcohol use: a prospective population-based study.

Aims: This study examines the relationship between stressful life-events and alcohol use in a longitudinal cohort study, and investigates whether gender, coping style and social support modify this relationship.

Design, Setting And Participants: Data analysed in this paper come from a sample of 1608 men and 1645 women drawn randomly from the cohort known as the Dutch Lifestyle and Health Study, consisting of 16,210 men and women aged 45-70 years, who were followed-up for 4 years (1996-2000).

Measurement: Alcohol use (recent and in the more distant past), occurrence of threatening life-events, coping style (action, cognitive and emotion coping), social support (perceived, actual support and social contacts) and other potential confounding factors were assessed with five annual self-administered questionnaires.

A literature overview of the relationship between life-events and alcohol use in the general population.

Aims: A critical review of the evidence of effects of stressful life-events on alcohol use in the general population, with a particular focus on study design.

Methods: A literature search in Medline was conducted, covering the period from 1990 to 2005, to identify articles in which the relationship between life-events and alcohol use in the general population (i.e.

Follow-up care by patient's own general practitioner after contact with out-of-hours care. A descriptive study.

Background: Little is known about the care process after patients have contacted a GP cooperative for out-of-hours care. The objective of this study was to determine the proportion of patients who seek follow-up care after contact with a GP cooperative for out-of-hours care, and to gain insight into factors that are related to this follow-up care.

Methods: A total of 2805 patients who contacted a GP cooperative for out-of-hours care were sent a questionnaire.