Biomedical subjects

N Britten

Publications and source records attributed to N Britten.

59 records · Page 4Linked to original sources

PubMed1988

Measuring general practitioner referrals: patient, workload and list size effects.

Individual general practitioners are known to vary widely in the number of patients they refer to hospital outpatient departments; indeed there is increasing concern that the 'high' referrers use a disproportionate quantity of National Health Service resources. Data from a one-week survey of referrals by 122 general practitioners in one health district showed that a different age-sex mix of patients consulting individual general practitioners might account for about one quarter of his or her referrals. The results also showed that different referral rates, calculated by using either workload or list size denominators, identified markedly different groups of high referrers. These different methods of measurement are discussed, and on practical grounds a referral rate based on actual referrals divided by mean practice list size is suggested for future comparisons.

Data Collection↗

PubMed1987

Early respiratory experience and subsequent cough and peak expiratory flow rate in 36 year old men and women.

Earlier work on the respiratory health of members of the Medical Research Council's national survey of health and development (1946 birth cohort) was extended to age 36. At that age measures of peak expiratory flow rate and respiratory symptoms, elicited by the MRC chronic bronchitis questionnaire, were made in 3261 cohort members. In both men and women lower peak expiratory flow and higher respiratory morbidity were independently associated not only with current indices of poor social circumstances and cigarette smoking but also with poor home environment at age 2 years and lower respiratory tract illness before age 10. The findings provide additional evidence for a causal relation between childhood respiratory experience and adult respiratory disease.

Adult↗

PubMed1986

Long term respiratory sequelae of whooping cough in a nationally representative sample.

The long term respiratory consequences of whooping cough in childhood were sought among members of the National Survey of Health and Development. Peak expiratory flow rate was measured when the survey members were 36 years old and seven respiratory symptoms were reported at the same time. Peak expiratory flow rate was slightly reduced in those who had had whooping cough as a child, and this difference became non-significant when other factors were taken into account. Unexpectedly, chronic cough was significantly less likely to be reported by those who had had whooping cough, and this difference remained significant only among men after other factors had been taken into account. This study failed to show a long term detrimental effect of whooping cough on the respiratory system.

Adult↗

PubMed1986

Epilepsy and handicap from birth to age 36.

Fifty-five subjects with epilepsy were identified in the first 36 years of the 1946 birth cohort study. In 37 cases there was neither evident cause for the epilepsy nor associated brain-damage and these are referred to as 'uncomplicated', the rest as 'complicated'. Subjects with epilepsy came from poorer social backgrounds than the rest of the cohort. Mortality for both the complicated and uncomplicated groups was high. The educational and occupational achievements, marriage and parenthood, self-esteem and psychiatric morbidity of those surviving to adult life were compared with individually matched controls drawn from the same population. For the uncomplicated group there was no evidence of handicap at age 26, but 10 years later handicap was evident in this group in the economic sphere and in self-esteem.

Adult↗

PubMed1984

Stigma in patients with early epilepsy: a national longitudinal study.

Forty six cases of epilepsy were identified from the National Survey of Health and Development. An index of social visibility at school was constructed from teachers' reports of survey members' behaviour at 15 years of age. For the sample as a whole this index was significantly associated with poorer educational outcomes, after adjusting for social background and measured attainment, but was not associated with poor occupational achievement. However the index did not differentiate between epileptic and non-epileptic children. Although cases with epilepsy were shown to be more at risk of psychiatric disturbance, it is concluded that their lives were less disrupted than might have been expected, and that there is no evidence from this study that stigma affects the lives of those whose epilepsy was not complicated by other pathologies.

Adolescent↗