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Table 3 Characteristics of practices, GPs and patients used for CME-M impact on patients’ primary care interval

From: Impact of a continuing medical education meeting on the use and timing of urgent cancer referrals among general practitioners - a before-after study

 

Reference group

CME-M group

Practices, N (proportion of study base %)

199 (82.9%)

139 (93.9%)

 Proportion of solo practices (95% CI)

0.53 (0.46;0.60)

0.26 (0.19;0.35)

 GPs per practice, mean (range)

1.85 (1–5)

2.66 (1–10)

GPs, N

369

370

 Proportion of males (95% CI)

0.57 (0.52;0.62)

0.47 (0.42;0.53)

 Mean age (95% CI)

52.1 (51.2;53.0)

51.4 (50.6;52.2)

Total referred patients during 8 months (age ≥ 40 yrs.)

Before CME-M, N = 5,749

After CME-M, N = 4,607

Before CME-M, N = 4,935

After CME-M, N = 5,303

Proportion of males (95% CI)

0.46 (0.45;0.47)

0.45 (0.44;0.47)

0.44 (0.43;0.46)

0.44 (0.43;0.46)

Mean age (95% CI)

62.8 (62.5;63.1)

63.0 (62.6;63.4)

62.5 (62.1;62.8)

62.8 (62.5;63.2)

Comorbidity (%)

 None

75.3

74.7

75.8

74.8

 Medium

20.7

21.3

19.9

21.2

 High

4.0

4.0

4.3

3.9

Referred patients with known primary care intervals (age ≥ 40 yrs.) (Response (%))

Before CME-M, N = 1,227

(21.3%)

After CME-M, N = 753

(16.3%)

Before CME-M, N = 990

(20.0%)

After CME-M, N = 1,102

(20.8%)

Proportion of males (95% CI)

0.52 (0.49;0.55)

0.54 (0.50;0.57)

0.48 (0.45;0.51)

0.47 (0.44;0.50)

Mean age (95% CI)

64.9 (64.2;65.6)

64.5 (63.6;65.3)

64.5 (63.8;65.3)

64.8 (64.1;65.5)

Comorbiditya (%)

 None

76.7

75.4

76.1

75.6

 Medium

19.7

20.2

20.1

21.0

 High

3.6

4.4

3.8

3.4

Cancer detection difficultyb (%)

 Easier to detect

72.2

68.4

69.2

70.2

 Harder to detect

23.1

25.4

26.4

24.9

 Missing information

4.6

6.2

4.4

4.9

  1. Abbreviations: CME-M continuing medical education meeting, GP general practitioner, CI confidence interval; yrs., years
  2. aComorbidity scores were divided into “none” (no recorded disease), “ moderate” (score of 1 or 2) and “high” (score of 3 or more)
  3. bThe suspected cancer was divided based on cancer detection difficulty: 1) easier to detect included kidney, bladder, breast, head and neck, female genitalia, nevus (melanoma), penis, testis and gastrointestinal and 2) harder to detect included unspecific symptoms, pancreas, liver and gall bladder, brain, lymph node and bone marrow, lung, prostate and connective tissue, including fat, muscle and bones