Patients' anxiety and expectations: how they influence family physicians' decisions to order cancer screening tests.

Objective: To compare the influence of physicians' recommendations and patients' anxiety or expectations on the decision to order four cancer screening tests in clinical situations where guidelines were equivocal: screening for prostate cancer with prostate-specific antigen for men older than 50; breast cancer screening with mammography for women 40 to 49; colorectal cancer screening with fecal occult blood testing; and colorectal cancer screening with colonoscopy for patients older than 40.

Design: Cross-sectional mailed survey with clinical vignettes.

Setting: British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario, Quebec, and Prince Edward Island.

Predictors of self-reported noncompliance with antihypertensive drug treatment: a prospective cohort study.

Background: Persistence and compliance are different aspects of the broader concept of adherence to drug treatment. In a prior study, determinants of nonpersistence in a group of patients newly prescribed antihypertensive medications were examined.

Objective: To determine noncompliance among those who were persistent with therapy.

What influences family physicians' cancer screening decisions when practice guidelines are unclear or conflicting?

Objectives: To determine (a) the respondents' perceptions of 4 unclear or conflicting cancer screening guidelines: prostate-specific antigen (PSA) for men over 50, mammography for women 40-49, colorectal screening by fecal occult blood testing (FOBT), and colonoscopy for patients over 40; and (b) the influence of various factors on the decision to order these tests.

Study Design: National Canadian mail survey of randomly selected family physicians.

Population: Family physicians in active practice (n=565) selected from rural and urban family medicine sites in 5 provinces representing the main regions in Canada.

Determinants of discontinuation of new courses of antihypertensive medications.

Discontinuation of medication use constitutes a major barrier to adequate control of high blood pressure. We examined the effect of an array of potential predisposing, enabling and reinforcing factors on the discontinuation of newly prescribed antihypertensive medications. We conducted a prospective cohort study through a network of 173 pharmacies across Canada where were identified individuals newly prescribed an antihypertensive monotherapy.