Table 4 Public health issues GPs’ discussed with patients

Do GPs ask about food related illness and occupation when patients have diarrhoea?

GP3 “I’ll normally ask if they can think of any reason why this has occurred and if any other family members or people that they’ve been associated with have got it. And again if you’re seeing a clear association that you think may have a public health issue then I would be sending a stool sample.”

GP7 “I sort of need to ask what job they do, are they involved in food handling at all or working in the food industry or in restaurants, and if they are you would probably need to advise them not to work until their symptoms have settled or until you’ve got a diagnosis”

GP8 “I tend to ask them what their job is, and I always tell people if they’ve got diarrhoea they mustn’t be at work especially if they work with children or handle food within 48 hours of any symptoms.”

Do GPs ask about other related cases when patients have diarrhoea?

GP4 “Well I always ask them if anyone else in the household has got it, or I suppose quite often they volunteer the fact if they think they ate something dodgy, or I will say to them have you eaten anything unusual, I will usually say that”

GP19 “Yes, I would, yeah. I’d ask them about that, if they’d eaten somewhere different or if anyone else in the household or in the group had similar symptoms”

Do GPs ask about recent antibiotic use when patients have diarrhoea?

GP10 “Not always I don’t think, no. I mean usually if it’s your patient you would know, you know, but I probably don’t to be honest. Probably should but don’t”

GP11 “I do, yes. Particularly, we get quite a lot of temporary residents here in where we are in x; we get a lot of visitors here and I will always ask them if they’ve had anything recently. Obviously we have our medical records in front of us who can tell us they’ve had something pretty powerful recently”

Do GPs ask about farm visits when patients have diarrhoea?

Interviewer: And what about things like young people having visited a farm recently, that kind of thing, would you ask about that?

GP9 “Probably not enough. Certainly we’ve got our fairly rural practices so I’d tend to ask about working on farms etc, but probably not ask enough about day visits. I mean usually some sort of question any ideas you know any thoughts of where it might have come from. So I’m quite interested in the patient’s individual beliefs about where things have come from. And that often an open question can pick up certain things.”

GP20 “No, although I probably should. I might well do after the news a few months ago, the E. coli outbreak.”

GP18 “No, I don’t specifically. But I take the point, probably worth doing. We do have one or two sort of open farms around here.”