How many people will need palliative care in Scotland by 2040? A mixed-method study of projected palliative care need and recommendations for service delivery.

Objective: To estimate future palliative care need and complexity of need in Scotland, and to identify priorities for future service delivery.

Design: We estimated the prevalence of palliative care need by analysing the proportion of deaths from defined chronic progressive illnesses. We described linear projections up to 2040 using national death registry data and official mortality forecasts.

Does ethnic diversity explain intra-UK variation in mortality? A longitudinal cohort study.

Objectives: It has been proposed that part of the explanation for higher mortality in Scotland compared with England and Wales, and Glasgow compared with other UK cities, relates to greater ethnic diversity in England and Wales. We sought to assess the extent to which this excess was attenuated by adjusting for ethnicity. We additionally explored the role of country of birth in any observed differences.

Death within 1 year among emergency medical admissions to Scottish hospitals: incident cohort study.

Background: It is increasingly recognised that large numbers of hospital inpatients have entered the last year of their lives.

Aim: To establish the likelihood of death within 12 months of admission to hospital; to examine the influence on survival of a cancer diagnosis made within the previous 5 years; to assess whether previous emergency admissions influenced mortality; and to compare mortality with that of the wider Scottish population.

Design: Incident cohort study.

Dying younger in Scotland: Trends in mortality and deprivation relative to England and Wales, 1981-2011.

Given previous evidence that not all Scotland's higher mortality compared to England & Wales (E&W) can be explained by deprivation, the aim was to enhance understanding of this excess by analysing changes in deprivation and mortality in Scotland and E&W between 1981 and 2011. Mortality was compared by means of direct standardisation and log-linear Poisson regression models, adjusting for age, sex and deprivation. Different measures of deprivation were employed, calculated at different spatial scales.

Predictors of place of death in South West Scotland 2000-2010: Retrospective cohort study.

Background: Surveys suggest most people would prefer to die in their own home.

Aim: To examine predictors of place of death over an 11-year period between 2000 and 2010 in Dumfries and Galloway, south west Scotland.

Design: Retrospective cohort study.

Predicting which people with psychosocial distress are at risk of becoming dependent on state benefits: analysis of routinely available data.

Objectives: To examine whether there was significant variation in levels of claiming incapacity benefit across general practices. To establish whether it is possible to identify people with mental health problems who are more at risk of becoming dependent on state benefits for long term health problems based on their general practice consulting behaviour.

Design: Interrogation of routinely available data in the Scottish Health Surveys and the British Household Panel Survey.

'A coal face option': GPs' perspectives on the rise in antidepressant prescribing.

Background: Levels of antidepressant prescribing have dramatically increased in Western countries in the last two decades.

Aim: To explore GPs' views about, and explanations for, the increase in antidepressant prescribing in Scotland between 1995 and 2004.

Design: Qualitative, interview study.

Factors influencing variation in prescribing of antidepressants by general practices in Scotland.

Background: The prescribing of antidepressants has been rising dramatically in developed countries.

Aim: As part of an investigation into the reasons for the rise and variation in the prescribing of antidepressants, this study aimed to describe, and account for, the variation in an age-sex standardised rate of antidepressant prescribing between general practices.

Design Of Study: Cross-sectional study involving analyses of routinely available data.

Relationship between antidepressant and anxiolytic/hypnotic prescribing: a mixed-methods study.

Background: Antidepressant prescribing has dramatically increased in Scotland, and the cause is unknown.

Objective: To investigate if the increase in antidepressant prescribing coincided with a reduction in prescribing of anxiolytics and hypnotics; to investigate this relationship at practice level; and to explore whether general practitioners (GPs) explain the increase by their increased use for anxiety.

Study Design: analysis of routine prescribing data and interviews with GPs.

Exploring potential explanations for the increase in antidepressant prescribing in Scotland using secondary analyses of routine data.

Background: Antidepressant prescribing in general practice has dramatically increased since the beginning of the last decade.

Aim: To determine if the increase in antidepressants prescribed in Scotland between 1995 and 2001 was due to increase in incidence, prevalence, care-seeking behaviour by patients, or identification by GPs of depression.

Method: Secondary analysis of routine data.