Self reported involvement in emergency medicine among GPs in Norway

Abstract

Objective: To examine general practitioners’ (GPs’) perception of their role in emergency medicine and participation in emergency services including ambulance call outs, and the characteristics of the GPs and casualty clinics associated with the GPs’ involvement in emergency medicine.

Design: Cross-sectional online survey.

Setting: General practice.

Subjects: General practitioners in Norway (n = 1002).

Main outcome measures: Proportion of GPs perceiving that they have a large role in emergency medicine, regularly being on call, and the proportion of ambulance callouts with GP participation.

Results: Forty six percent of the GPs indicated that they play a large role in emergency medicine, 63 percent of the GPs were regularly on call, and 28 percent responded that they usually took part in ambulance call outs. Multivariable logistic regression analyses indicated that these outcomes were strongly associated with participation in multidisciplinary training. Furthermore, the main outcomes were associated with traits commonly seen at smaller casualty clinics such as those with an absence of nursing personnel and extra physicians, and based on the distance to the hospital.

Conclusion: Our findings suggest that GPs play an important role in emergency medicine. Multidisciplinary team training may be important for their continued involvement in prehospital emergencies.

Key Points

•   Health authorities and other stakeholders have raised concerns about general practitioner’s (GPs) participation in emergency medicine, but few have studied opinions and perceptions among the GPs themselves.

•   • Norwegian GPs report playing a large role in emergency medicine, regularly being on call, and taking part in selected ambulance call outs.

•   • A higher proportion of GPs who took part in team training perceived themselves as playing a large role in emergency medicine, regularly being on call, and taking part in ambulance call outs.

•   • These outcomes were also associated with attributes commonly seen at smaller casualty clinics.

Keywords:

• Primary health care
• emergency medical services
• out-of-off hours service
• general practitioner
• Norway
• prehospital emergency medicine
• casualty clinic

Acknowledgements

We wish to thank the Norwegian Center of Rural Medicine for the news coverage about the project. The authors also thank the GPs who took part in this study.

Disclosure statement

The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of this article.

Notes on contributors

 

Magnus Hjortdahl is a GP in training and PhD student at UiT - The Artic University of Norway. His research interest is GP’s role in pre hospital emergency medicine.

Erik Zakariassen is a nurse, Phd and Associate Professor at the University of Bergen, and a researcher at National Centre for Emergency Primary Health care, UNI Health. His research interest is the prehospital emergency system.

Peder A. Halvorsen is a practicing GP, PhD and part time Professor in general practice at UiT - the Arctic University of Norway. His research interests are medical decision making, public health and rural medicine.

Additional information

Funding

Magnus Hjortdahl was funded by the Norwegian Research Fund for General Practice. This work was also supported by the Norwegian Center of Rural Medicine.