Abstract
BackgroundSurvival rates of patients with cancer are increasing owing to improvements in diagnostics and therapies. The traditional hospital-based follow-up model faces challenges because of the consequent increasing workload, and it has been suggested that selected patients with cancer could be followed up by GPs.The hypothesis of the study was that, regardless of the hospital-based follow-up care, GPs see their patients with cancer both for cancer-related problems as well as for other reasons. Thus, a formalised follow-up by GPs would not mean too large a change in GPs’ workloads.AimTo explore to what extent patients with cancer consult their GPs, and for what reasons.Design & settingA 1-year explorative study was undertaken, based on data from 91 Norwegian GPs from 2016–2017.MethodThe data were electronically extracted from GPs' electronic medical records (EMR).ResultsData were collected from 91 GPs. There were 11 074 consultations in total, generated by 1932 patients with cancer. The mean consultation rate was higher among the patients with cancer compared with Norwegian patients in general. In one-third of the consultations, cancer was the main diagnosis. Apart from cancer, cardiovascular and musculoskeletal diagnoses were common. Patients with cancer who had multiple diagnoses or psychological diagnoses did not consult their GP significantly more often than patients with cancer without such comorbidity.ConclusionThis study confirms that patients with cancer consult their GP more often than other patients, both for cancer-related reasons and for various comorbidities. A formalised follow-up by GPs would probably be feasible, and GPs should prepare for this responsibility.
Highlights
Improvements in diagnostics and therapies mean survival rates of patients with cancer are increasing
How this fits in Survival rates of patients with cancer are increasing owing to improvements in diagnostics and therapies
There is a lack of formalised follow-up by GPs after cancer treatment, and follow-up care is mainly hospital-based
Summary
Improvements in diagnostics and therapies mean survival rates of patients with cancer are increasing. There is a lack of formalised follow-up by GPs after cancer treatment, and follow-up care is mainly hospital-based This traditional follow-up model faces challenges owing to increasing workload, and it has been suggested that selected patients with cancer could be followed up by GPs.[1,2,3,4] GPs have reported broad experience in providing follow-up care to patients with cancer,[2,5] and some randomised studies indicate that hospital-based follow-up provides no advantages compared with follow-up in primary care in terms of detection of recurrence or quality of life.[1,6,7]. A formalised follow-up by GPs would probably be feasible, and GPs should prepare for this responsibility
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