Feasibility of implementing current best clinical practice for people who are using anabolic androgenic steroids within a Swiss primary care practice: a quality assurance study.

Background: The non-medical use of anabolic androgenic steroids for the improvement of aesthetic and sports performance purposes has become a global substance use disorder, particularly among men in recreational sports. Health outcomes among people who are using anabolic androgenic steroids may be detrimental, yet healthcare services for these users are scarce. Therefore, the aim of this project was to conduct a quality assurance study to evaluate the feasibility of providing current best clinical practice for anabolic androgenic steroids users based on the published literature within a primary care practice in Zurich (Switzerland).

Leveraging free-text diagnoses to identify patients with diabetes mellitus, obesity or dyslipidaemia - a cross-sectional study in a large Swiss primary care database.

Background: Electronic medical records (EMRs) in general practice provide various methods for identifying patients with specific diagnoses. While several studies have focused on case identification via structured EMR components, diagnoses in general practice are frequently documented as unstructured free-text entries, making their use for research challenging. Furthermore, diagnoses may remain undocumented even when evidence of the underlying disease exists within structured EMR data.

[Residency Programmes and Curricula in Primary Care: Importance for the Next Generation of Physicians in the Canton of Zurich].

Residency programmes and curricula in primary care (PC) provide low-threshold access to PC training, with the aim of attracting more physicians into these setting. Alumni from the canton of Zurich were asked about their careers and the content of PC curricula. Of 178 alumni, 46.

Family Medicine Practice as Learning Environment: A Medical Student Evaluation in Switzerland.

Introduction: Improving the quality of teaching placements in family medicine practice (FMP) could help to address the shortage of primary care physicians. This study aims to investigate students' evaluations of first-exposure FMP placements, to identify clusters of FMPs that might need to improve their placement quality, and to analyze students' perceptions of the FMP as a learning environment.

Methods: The design was a cross-sectional survey study, including all fourth-year undergraduate medical students at the University of Zurich, Switzerland, who completed a mandatory placement in FMP during 2019-2022.

Context counts: a qualitative study on how adolescents activate social resources to develop and practice health literacy.

Background: Recently, the importance of social networks and other contextual factors in shaping health literacy of adolescents has gained recognition. However, research often simply refers to context without explicitly describing it. In this qualitative study, we aimed to explore how adolescents activate their (social) resources to develop and practice health literacy within a Swiss cantonal school health service program and in their everyday lives.

The effectiveness of a multi-domain electronic feedback report on the performance of quality indicators for chronic conditions: Protocol for a randomized controlled trial in general practice.

Background: Chronic conditions are a significant public health concern due to their rising prevalence, association with high mortality, and substantial healthcare costs. General practitioners play a crucial role in managing these conditions, and quality indicators are essential tools for assessing the quality of care. Electronic feedback reports incorporating quality indicator performance have shown promise in improving care quality.

Blood pressure control and antihypertensive treatment in Swiss general practice: a cross-sectional study using routine data.

Aims Of The Study: Arterial hypertension is a major global health risk. Global surveys indicate that only half of patients with arterial hypertension receive pharmacotherapy, and only a quarter achieve the primary blood pressure target recommended by guidelines. This study aimed to evaluate the achievement of the primary blood pressure target in Swiss general practice, provide insights into arterial hypertension treatment, and identify factors associated with achieving this goal.

Null effect of perceived drum pattern complexity on the experience of groove.

There is a broad consensus in groove research that the experience of groove, understood as a pleasurable urge to move in response to music, is to some extent related to the complexity of the rhythm. Specifically, music with medium rhythmic complexity has been found to motivate greater urge to move compared to low or high complexity music (inverted-U hypothesis). Studies that confirmed the inverted-U hypothesis usually based their measure of complexity on the rhythmic phenomenon of syncopation, where rhythms with more and/or stronger syncopation are considered to be more complex than less syncopated rhythms.

[Diagnosis and treatment of venous thrombosis - part 2].

The subject of this guideline from the Institute of Family Medicine at the University of Zurich (IHAMZ) is the management of venous thrombosis. The review summarizes the current evidence and recommendations from international guidelines (1-6). The IHAMZ-guidelines focus on primary care, they also provide guidance on the coordination of general and specialist medical care as well as on the transition between outpatient and hospital care taking into account the special features of the Swiss healthcare system.

Procedure Prioritization During a Nationwide Ban on Non-Urgent Healthcare: A Quasi-Experimental Retrospective Study of Hospital Data in Switzerland.

Background: During the COVID-19 lockdown in spring 2020, Switzerland restricted non-urgent healthcare services to safeguard capacity. While prioritization of care was supposed to be driven by medical urgency, demographic factors or economic incentives might have influenced the hospitals' resource allocation decisions.

Objectives: This study investigates potential determinants of procedure prioritization in hospitalized patients during the lockdown period.

Discrepancy between antibiotic pack sizes and guideline recommendations: a real-world analysis based on claims data.

Purpose: Antibiotics are often only available in predefined pack sizes, which may not align with guideline recommendations. This can result in leftover pills, leading to inappropriate self-medication or waste disposal, which can both foster the development of antibiotic resistance. The magnitude of inappropriate pack sizes is largely unknown.

Diverse roles of Primary Health Care in COVID-19 vaccination across 28 European countries - Insights from the Eurodata study.

Background: The COVID-19 vaccination campaign in several European countries involved collaboration between public health and Primary Health Care (PHC).

Objective: To highlight the role of PHC professionals in the COVID-19 vaccination rollout, specifically in terms of vaccine administration, communication and contributing to vaccination population coverage.

Methods: A descriptive retrospective study of the COVID-19 vaccination campaign across 28 European countries was conducted, covering data from December 2020 to November 2021.

Prescriber-level surveillance of outpatient antimicrobial consumption to enable targeted antimicrobial stewardship: a nationwide observational study, Switzerland, 2015 to 2022.

BackgroundIn Europe and other high-income countries, antibiotics are mainly prescribed in the outpatient setting, which consists of primary, specialist and hospital-affiliated outpatient care. Established surveillance platforms report antimicrobial consumption (AMC) on aggregated levels and the contribution of the different prescriber groups is unknown.AimTo determine the contribution of different prescribers to the overall outpatient AMC in Switzerland.

[Diagnosis and treatment of venous thrombosis].

The subject of this guideline from the Institute of Family Medicine at the University of Zurich (IHAMZ) is the management of venous thrombosis. The review summarizes the current evidence and recommendations from international guidelines (1-6). The IHAMZ-guidelines focus on primary care, they also provide guidance on the coordination of general and specialist medical care as well as on the transition between outpatient and hospital care taking into account the special features of the Swiss healthcare system.

Ferritin Cutoffs and Diagnosis of Iron Deficiency in Primary Care.

Importance: Ferritin is often measured by general practitioners, but the association of different cutoffs with the rates of iron deficiency diagnoses, particularly nonanemic iron deficiency, is unknown.

Objective: To investigate the association of the ferritin cutoff choice with the incidence of nonanemic and anemic iron deficiency diagnoses in primary care.

Design, Setting, And Participants: In this retrospective cohort study, patients 18 years or older with at least 1 consultation with a general practitioner participating in the Family Medicine Research Using Electronic Medical Records (FIRE) project, an electronic medical records database of Swiss primary care, from January 1, 2021, to November 30, 2023, were evaluated.

Developing and testing a framework for coding general practitioners' free-text diagnoses in electronic medical records - a reliability study for generating training data in natural language processing.

Background: Diagnoses entered by general practitioners into electronic medical records have great potential for research and practice, but unfortunately, diagnoses are often in uncoded format, making them of little use. Natural language processing (NLP) could assist in coding free-text diagnoses, but NLP models require local training data to unlock their potential. The aim of this study was to develop a framework of research-relevant diagnostic codes, to test the framework using free-text diagnoses from a Swiss primary care database and to generate training data for NLP modelling.

Changes in the attractiveness of medical careers and career determinants during the bachelor's program at Zurich medical schools.

Background: Monitoring the career intentions of medical students during their undergraduate studies could help to address the shortage of physicians, particularly in general practice. This study aimed to investigate changes in medical students' career openness, attractiveness and determinants of medical career choice during their bachelor's studies.

Methods: The design was cross-sectional, recruiting all medical students who started a bachelor's program in one of the four different educational tracks in Zurich, Switzerland, in the fall of 2019 (first survey) and completed it in the summer of 2022 (second survey).

Potentially Inappropriate Medication Use in Primary Care in Switzerland.

Importance: Potentially inappropriate medication (PIM) exposes patients to an increased risk of adverse outcomes. Many lists of explicit criteria provide guidance on identifying PIM and recommend alternative prescribing, but the complexity of available lists limits their applicability and the amount of data available on PIM prescribing.

Objective: To determine PIM prevalence and the most frequently prescribed PIMs according to 6 well-known PIM lists and to develop a best practice synthesis for clinicians.

[The CARE (CArdiovasculaR prEvention) Score - an instrument for recording the quality of care of cardiovascular risk patients in the GP practice].

There is potential for improvement in the care of cardiovascular diseases in Switzerland, particularly when it comes to achieving target values defined in guidelines. Adherence scores such as the SGED score for diabetic care established in Switzerland can help to reduce the evidence-performance gap. The CARE score presented here is an adherence score that validly reflects the quality of care for patients with a cardiovascular risk using process and outcome indicators.

Perceived dilemma between protective measures and social isolation in nursing homes during the COVID-19 pandemic: a mixed methods study among Swiss nursing home directors.

Background: Coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) particularly affected older adults, with the highest risks for nursing home residents. Stringent governmental protective measures for nursing homes unintendedly led to social isolation of residents. Nursing home directors (NDs) found themselves in a dilemma between implementing protective measures and preventing the social isolation of nursing home residents.

Patient leaflets on respiratory tract infections did not improve shared decision making and antibiotic prescriptions in a low-prescriber setting.

Patient information leaflets can reduce antibiotic prescription rates by improving knowledge and encouraging shared decision making (SDM) in patients with respiratory tract infections (RTI). The effect of these interventions in antibiotic low-prescriber settings is unknown. We conducted a pragmatic pre-/post interventional study between October 2022 and March 2023 in Swiss outpatient care.

Primary care indicators for disease burden, monitoring and surveillance of COVID-19 in 31 European countries: Eurodata Study.

Background: During the COVID-19 pandemic, the majority of patients received ambulatory treatment, highlighting the importance of primary health care (PHC). However, there is limited knowledge regarding PHC workload in Europe during this period. The utilization of COVID-19 PHC indicators could facilitate the efficient monitoring and coordination of the pandemic response.

Influenza vaccination patterns among at-risk patients during the Covid-19 pandemic-a retrospective cross-sectional study based on claims data.

Purpose: The Covid-19 pandemic may have encouraged at-risk patients to get vaccinated against influenza for the first time. As previous vaccinations are known predictors for further vaccinations, knowledge about individual vaccination patterns, especially in first time vaccinated patients, is of great interest. The aim of this study was to determine influenza vaccination uptake rate (VUR), individual vaccination patterns and factors associated with vaccination uptake among at-risk patients.

Broken bones and apple brandy: resilience and sensemaking of general practitioners and their at-risk patients during the COVID-19 pandemic in Switzerland.

In early 2020, when the first COVID-19 cases were confirmed in Switzerland, the federal government started implementing measures such as national stay-at-home recommendations and a strict limitation of health care services use. General practitioners (GPs) and their at-risk patients faced similar uncertainties and grappled with subsequent sensemaking of the unprecedented situation. Qualitative interviews with 24 GPs and 37 at-risk patients were conducted which were analyzed using thematic analysis.