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Introduction: General practitioners are the first prescribers of speech therapy in France, a country in which speech therapists can practice only on medical prescription. The objective of this study was to measure general practioner's knowledge on means of prescribing speech therapy., Method: Cross-sectional study by self-questionnaires for general practitioners and residents in general practice in France. The test assessed five types of knowledge conducive to correct prescription of speech therapy: requirements for prescription, indications, prescription wording, ages of treatment eligibility, and reimbursement. The questionnaires were tested on an expert population, whose median score was used as a cut-off to separate doctors who knew the modalities of speech therapy prescription from those whose knowledge was insufficient. The characteristics differentiating the two groups were compared by multiple logistic regression., Results: Five hundred and three general practitioners and five hundred and two residents in general medicine were included; 82.3% of the physicians having written a thesis and 86.2% of the residents had insufficient knowledge of the modalities of speech therapy prescription. Age, number of years since acquisition of a medical diploma and urban practice all had a negative impact on general practitioners' knowledge of speech therapy., Conclusion: French general practitioners' knowledge of speech therapy prescription seems insufficient. It is consequently necessary to improve the initial and continuing training of doctors. Collaborative work between general practitioners and speech therapists should be carried on, developed and strengthened., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest Les auteurs déclarent ne pas avoir de liens d'intérêts., (Copyright © 2022 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.)

Background: The safety of non-steroids anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) in the context of pharyngitis is doubtful with contradictory results in the literature., Objective: To evaluate the risk of peritonsillar abscess (PTA) associated to NSAIDs consumption during a pharyngitis episode observed in primary care., Method: A retrospective cohort study using Observatory of General Medicine Datalink from 1995 to 2010. All patients consulting a GP from the Datalink network for pharyngitis have been included. The occurrence of a PTA in the 15 days following the consultation for pharyngitis was matched. The association between PTA and prescriptions of NSAIDs was studied via an adjusted logistic regression model., Results: During the study period, 105 802 cases of pharyngitis and 48 cases of PTA following a pharyngitis were reported, concerning respectively 67 765 and 47 patients. In the multivariate analysis, the risk of PTA was associated positively with a NSAIDs prescription (OR = 2.9, 95% CI = 1.6-5.2). Other factors associated with PTA occurrence were the prescription of corticosteroids (OR = 3.1, 95% CI = 1.3-7.6) and an age between 20 and 40 years (OR = 5.7, 95% CI = 2.5-13.0). The prescription of antibiotics was not significantly associated with PTA (P = 0.7)., Conclusion: Prescription of NSAIDs in pharyngitis may increase the risk of PTA. This study encourages considering cautiously the balance between benefits and harms before prescription of NSAIDs for pharyngitis., (© The Author(s) 2018. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.)

Background: At cancer diagnosis, it is unclear whether continuity of care (COC) between the patient and GP is safeguarded., Aim: To identify patient-GP loss of COC around the time of, and in the year after, a cancer diagnosis, together with its determinants., Design and Setting: A post-hoc analysis of data from a prospective cohort of GPs in France, taken from a survey by the Observatoire de la Médecine Générale., Method: A prospective GP cohort ( n = 96) filed data on patients who were diagnosed with incident cancer between 1 January 2000 and 31 December 2010. COC was assessed by ascertaining the frequency of consultations and the maximal interval between them. (In France, patients see their referring/named GP in most cases.) A loss of COC was measured during the trimester before and the year after the cancer diagnosis, and the results compared with those from a 1-year baseline period before cancer had been diagnosed. A loss of COC was defined as a longer interval (that is, the maximum number of days) between consultations in the measurement periods than at baseline. Determinants of the loss in COC were assessed with univariate and multivariate logistic regression models., Results: In total, 2853 patients were included; the mean age was 66.1 years. Of these, 1440 (50.5%) were women, 389 (13.6%) had metastatic cancer, and 769 (27.0%) had a comorbidity. The mean number of consultations increased up to, and including, the first trimester after diagnosis. Overall, 26.9% (95% confidence interval [CI] = 25.3 to 28.6) of patients had a loss of COC in the trimester before the diagnosis, and 22.3% (95% CI = 20.7 to 23.9) in the year after. Increasing comorbidity score was independently associated with a reduction in the loss of COC during the year after diagnosis (adjusted odds ratio [OR] comorbidity versus no comorbidity 0.61, 95% CI = 0.48 to 0.79); the same was true for metastatic status (adjusted OR metastasis versus no metastasis 0.49, 95% CI = 0.35 to 0.70)., Conclusion: As COC is a core value for GPs and for most patients, special care should be taken to prevent a loss of COC around the time of a cancer diagnosis, and in the year after., (© British Journal of General Practice 2019.)

Context: From one country to another, the pay-for-performance mechanisms differ on one significant point: the identification of target populations, that is, populations which serve as a basis for calculating the indicators. The aim of this study was to compare clinical versus medication-based identification of populations of patients with diabetes and hypertension over the age of 50 (for men) or 60 (for women), and any consequences this may have on the calculation of P4P indicators., Methods: A comparative, retrospective, observational study was carried out with clinical and prescription data from a panel of general practitioners (GPs), the Observatory of General Medicine (OMG) for the year 2007. Two indicators regarding the prescription for statins and aspirin in these populations were calculated., Results: We analyzed data from 21.690 patients collected by 61 GPs via electronic medical files. Following the clinical-based approach, 2.278 patients were diabetic, 8,271 had hypertension and 1.539 had both against respectively 1.730, 8.511 and 1.304 following the medication-based approach (% agreement = 96%, kappa = 0.69). The main reasons for these differences were: forgetting to code the morbidities in the clinical approach, not taking into account the population of patients who were given life style and diet rules only or taking into account patients for whom morbidities other than hypertension could justify the use of antihypertensive drugs in the medication-based approach. The mean (confidence interval) per doctor was 33.7% (31.5-35.9) for statin indicator and 38.4% (35.4-41.4) for aspirin indicator when the target populations were identified on the basis of clinical criteria whereas they were 37.9% (36.3-39.4) and 43.8% (41.4-46.3) on the basis of treatment criteria., Conclusion: The two approaches yield very "similar" scores but these scores cover different realities and offer food for thought on the possible usage of these indicators in the framework of P4P programmes.