Identifying COVID-19 cases in outpatient settings.

Case identification is an ongoing issue for the COVID-19 epidemic, in particular for outpatient care where physicians must decide which patients to prioritise for further testing. This paper reports tools to classify patients based on symptom profiles based on 236 severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 positive cases and 564 controls, accounting for the time course of illness using generalised multivariate logistic regression. Significant symptoms included abdominal pain, cough, diarrhoea, fever, headache, muscle ache, runny nose, sore throat, temperature between 37.

The impact of COVID-19 on private and public primary care physicians: A cross-sectional study.

Purpose: Primary care physicians (PCP) are at a high risk of contracting COVID-19 as they manage patients with fever or respiratory symptoms, but it is intuitive that private and public practice PCPs may face different challenges during this pandemic. This study compared work- and non-work-related concerns, COVID-19's impact on personal and professional lives, and perceived pandemic preparedness between private and public PCPs in Singapore.

Methods: 216 PCPs who were a registered member of either the National University Polyclinics, National University Health System Primary Care Network or College of Family Physicians Singapore, participated in this online cross-sectional study.

Prepared and highly committed despite the risk of COVID-19 infection: a cross-sectional survey of primary care physicians' concerns and coping strategies in Singapore.

Background: Primary care physicians (PCPs) are first points-of-contact between suspected cases and the healthcare system in the current COVID-19 pandemic. This study examines PCPs' concerns, impact on personal lives and work, and level of pandemic preparedness in the context of COVID-19 in Singapore. We also examine factors and coping strategies that PCPs have used to manage stress during the outbreak.

The Patient Activation through Community Empowerment/Engagement for Diabetes Management (PACE-D) protocol: a non-randomised controlled trial of personalised care and support planning for persons living with diabetes.

Background: Personalised care and support planning (CSP) has been shown to improve diabetes outcomes, patient experience and provider morale in the care of persons living with diabetes. However, this has not been confirmed in controlled studies. Patient Activation through Community Empowerment/Engagement for Diabetes Management (PACE-D) is a pragmatic controlled trial that evaluates the effectiveness of personalised CSP in persons living with diabetes in the public primary care setting in Singapore.

Ministry of Health Clinical Practice Guidelines: Prevention, Diagnosis and Management of Tuberculosis.

The Ministry of Health (MOH) has developed the clinical practice guidelines on Prevention, Diagnosis and Management of Tuberculosis to provide doctors and patients in Singapore with evidence-based treatment for tuberculosis. This article reproduces the introduction and executive summary (with recommendations from the guidelines) from the MOH clinical practice guidelines on Prevention, Diagnosis and Management of Tuberculosis, for the information of SMJ readers. The chapters and page numbers mentioned in the reproduced extract refer to the full text of the guidelines, which are available from the Ministry of Health website: http://www.

Economic burden of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

Background And Objective: The aim of this study was to estimate the direct medical costs of COPD in two public health clusters in Singapore from 2005 to 2009.

Methods: Patients aged 40 years and over, who had been diagnosed with COPD, were identified in a Chronic Disease Management Data-mart. Annual utilization of health services in inpatient, specialist outpatient, emergency department and primary care settings was extracted from the Chronic Disease Management Data-mart.

Characteristics, and disease control and complications of hypertensive patients in primary-care - a community-based study in Singapore.

Introduction: Hypertension is a common chronic condition usually managed by primary-care practitioners in Singapore. This study assessed the characteristics, control and complications of non-diabetic hypertensive patients managed at government primary healthcare clinics.

Materials And Methods: A cross-sectional study involving 9 clinics was conducted over 1-week in 2006.

Acute respiratory symptoms in adults in general practice.

Background: Community studies have shown that approximately 30% of patients with acute respiratory tract symptoms have no identifiable infective aetiology. This may not be applicable in general practice.

Objective: The purpose of this study was to determine the infective aetiology in patients who presented to primary care doctors with acute respiratory symptoms.