[Physicians' view on drug therapy for hypertension. A questionnaire in the county of Hordaland]. / Legers mening om medikamentell blodtrykksbehandling. En spørreundersøkelse i Hordaland fylke.

A questionnaire survey was conducted in Hordaland county to discover opinions on drug therapy for uncomplicated hypertensives with no other risk factors. The response rate was 66%; 179 general practitioners and 31 hospital doctors. The doctors were well informed about the documentation of the clinical benefit of various drugs. As regards the minimum blood pressure that was considered as warranting drug treatment, the majority of the doctors followed the recently issued national guidelines. For young patients the first choice drugs were beta-blockers (27%), ACE-inhibitors (25%) or calcium-blockers (20%). For older patients 65% of the doctors preferred diuretics or beta-blockers. The majority (80%) based their choice of drug primarily on documentation of clinical value or absence of side effects. The doctors underestimated the cost of the newer antihypertensive drugs.

[The requirement to use the cheapest synonymous preparation--does it work as intended?]. / Ordningen med billigste synonympreparat--virker den etter hensikten?

A retrospective analysis of all prescriptions for hypersensitive drugs was undertaken at a pharmacy serving 20 general practitioners and 17 temporarily employed doctors. The analysis was carried out in 1992 over two three-month periods separated by an interval of five months. The Governmental regulations aimed at promoting use of the "cheapest synonymous drug" apparently had little impact on the doctors' prescriptions. During the 11 months concerned, the prescribed antihypersensitive drugs contained an increasing share of expensive alternatives with no documented ability to reduce cardiovascular morbidity or mortality.

[Norwegian professional literature for general practice. Requirements and expectations]. / Norsk faglitteratur for allmennpraksis. Noen krav og forventninger.

The amount of Norwegian specialist literature for general practice is increasing. In this article we discuss 16 requirements that should be considered when producing new books for general practice. These requirements refer to four main areas: --We should prove that the general practitioner needs the book --The book should develop the theoretical and professional basis of general practice --The book should develop the practical and concrete contents of general practice --The book should have a presentation which makes the information easily accessible to a busy general practitioner.

Evaluation of serum separator tubes as a mail transport device in primary health care.

Serum separator tubes were evaluated as a serum separator system and a mail transport device. Using conventional tubes as controls, 26 serum constituents were examined. The samples were mailed from three different general practitioners to a central laboratory. Thirteen constituents had concentrations that were significantly different from the concentration in the conventional tubes. When medically important coefficients of variations were taken into account, however, the changes of only two constituents (potassium and cobalamin) were regarded as important.