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Depressed, anxious and breathless missing out: Weight screening in general practice in a regional catchment of N ew S outh W ales
Author(s) -
Ghosh Abhijeet
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
australian journal of rural health
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.48
H-Index - 49
eISSN - 1440-1584
pISSN - 1038-5282
DOI - 10.1111/ajr.12264
Subject(s) - overweight , medicine , waist , body mass index , odds ratio , confidence interval , obesity , demography , cross sectional study , medical record , pediatrics , pathology , sociology
Objective To assess the recording status of weight management measures among adults presenting to general practices within regional catchments. Design Cross‐sectional; secondary data analysis. Setting Primary health care – 17 general practices located in the Illawarra Shoalhaven region of regional N ew S outh W ales. Participants A subset of the S entinel P ractices D ata S ourcing project database ( n = 118 709 adults) that included information on demographic indicators, chronic disease status, and obesity and overweight‐specific measurement indicators recorded from S eptember 2011 to S eptember 2013. Main outcome measures Proportions of coded recording of quantitative measures of overweight and obesity – body mass index ( BMI ) and waist circumference, and likelihood of BMI recording (odds ratios ( OR s)) by various clinical diagnosis and counts of recorded conditions. Results Of the patients, 30.9% had a BMI recorded and only 8.0% had a waist circumference recorded in their electronic medical records. There were variations in BMI recording across age with those aged 45–64 years more likely (a OR = 1.25; 95% confidence interval ( CI ), 1.21–1.29; P ‐value < 0.001) to have a recorded BMI . Patients with mental health conditions (a OR = 0.80; 95% CI , 0.76–0.84; P ‐value < 0.001) and patients with respiratory conditions (a OR = 0.91; 95% CI , 0.86–0.96; P ‐value = 0.001) were significantly less likely to have a BMI recorded. Conclusions Recording of measures of obesity and overweight in general practices within regional settings is much lower than optimal. More support and advocacy around weighing patients at all interactions is required for regional general practitioners to increase the weight screening in primary care. These findings have policy‐relevant implications for weight management in regional A ustralia.