Abstract
BackgroundThe majority of allergy patients who seek medical advice are seen in primary care. In-service training of professionals in general practice is needed in order to increase knowledge among primary care clinicians about allergy. Therefore it is important to establish a consensus about what primary care professionals should be able to do, and what the public can expect. We sought to identify core competencies for good practice amongst primary care providers with respect to diagnosis and therapy of allergic diseases and to outline learning objectives for a postgraduate training programme in this field.MethodsThe study involved three rounds, involving a total of 43 expert panellists. In the first round, a panel was asked to indicate competencies (knowledge, diagnostics, therapy and communication) necessary for primary care providers. The second and third rounds were answered by primary care physicians (26) and nurses (10). A Likert scale 1-4 was applied in the second round and two choices ("agree"/"disagree") in the third round, with a criterion of 75% being adopted.ResultsThe second round included 80 competencies and the third 50. The third round selected a consensus of 46 competencies defining nine learning outcomes for in-service medical training.ConclusionsThe competencies in the field of allergy recommended in this study may serve as a reference of what can be expected from primary care providers.
Highlights
The majority of allergy patients who seek medical advice are seen in primary care
The number of allergy specialists varies in different parts of the world, and the majority of patients who seek medical advice are seen in primary care
Selection of panel members The panel, recruited from the whole of Sweden, was invited to suggest what they considered important competencies in the primary care setting for investigation and treatment of allergy patients
Summary
In-service training of professionals in general practice is needed in order to increase knowledge among primary care clinicians about allergy. The number of allergy specialists varies in different parts of the world, and the majority of patients who seek medical advice are seen in primary care. There is, a great diversity in knowledge and tools for the management of this patient group in different settings and there is need for inservice training of professionals in order to provide guideline-driven and evidence-based health care. A disadvantage of meetings is that some panel members can be inhibited by stronger individuals who dominate the group. Another approach for reaching consensus is a voting system at larger meetings [4]. A pitfall here may be that the participants, interested in the subject, do not always have extensive experience unless there are special criteria for voting
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