The accuracy of primary care teams in diagnosing disorders of the shoulder

Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice - Tập 17 Số 1 - Trang 118-122 - 2011
Shelain Patel1, Fahad Hossain2, Henry Colaco1, M. El‐Husseiny1, Marcus H Lee3
1Specialist Registrar
2Clinical Research Fellow,
3Consultant Orthopaedic Surgeon University College Hospital, London, UK

Tóm tắt

AbstractObjective  The aim of this retrospective, observational study was to determine the accuracy of diagnoses given by a multitude of primary care services to patients referred to an orthopaedic upper limb surgeon with a focus towards shoulder pathology.Methods  Records of all patients referred to a single upper limb surgeon over a 1‐year period were reviewed. The diagnosis in the primary care setting was compared with the initial working diagnosis in the specialist clinic and against the final diagnosis following specialist investigation/intervention.Results  114 eligible patients were identified. General practitioners referred 35% of patients, musculoskeletal triage services referred 63% of patients and independent physiotherapists referred 2% of patients. It was found that 37% of patients were not given a diagnosis by the primary care team. When a diagnosis was given, accuracy was 50% (κ = 0.28) when correlated against that given by an orthopaedic upper limb surgeon.Conclusions  Our findings suggest that knowledge of shoulder conditions is limited amongst primary care practitioners. There does not appear to be any difference in accuracy between general practitioners and musculoskeletal triage services.

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Tài liệu tham khảo

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Thông tin
Thông tin xuất bản

Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice

Tập 17 Số 1

118-122

Thông tin tác giả