Why do children under 5 years go to the GP in Lambeth: a cross-sectional study.

OBJECTIVES: This study identifies the most common recorded reason for attendance to primary care for children under 5 years old, including a breakdown via age, ethnicity, deprivation quintile and sex. DESIGN: Cross-sectional. SETTING: 39 of 40 general practices in Lambeth, London, UK. PARTICIPANTS: 22 189 children under 5 years who had attended primary care between the 1 April 2017 and 31 March 2020 and had not opted out of anonymous data sharing within Lambeth DataNet. OUTCOME MEASURE: The primary objective was to identify the most frequently recorded complaint in general practice for children under 5 years old. The secondary objective was to understand how presenting complaint differs by age, ethnicity, sex and deprivation level. The third objective was to create a multivariate logistic regression with frequent attendance as the outcome variable. RESULTS: Nine conditions formed over 50% of all patient interactions: the most common reason was upper respiratory tract infections (14%), followed by eczema (8%) and cough (7%). While there was some variation by ethnicity and age, these nine conditions remained dominant. Children living in the most deprived area are more likely to be frequent attenders than children living in the least deprived area (adjusted OR (AOR) 1.27 (95% CI 1.14 to 1.41)). Children of Indian (AOR 1.47 (1.04 to 2.08)), Bangladeshi (AOR 2.70 (1.95 to 3.74)) and other white (AOR 1.18 (1.04 to 1.34)) ethnicities were more likely to be frequent attenders, compared with those of white British ethnicity. CONCLUSIONS: Most reasons for attendance for children under 5 years to primary care are for acute, self-limiting conditions. Some of these could potentially be managed by increasing access to community care services, such as pharmacies. By focusing on the influence of the broader determinants of health as to why particular groups are more likely to attend, health promotion efforts have the opportunity to reduce barriers to healthcare and improve outcomes.

Managing stroke risk in patients with atrial fibrillation: a cross-sectional analysis of socio-demographic inequalities in a London borough.

BACKGROUND: Stroke prevention is essential for patients with atrial fibrillation (AF), but some receive sub-optimal management. We reviewed those with a recorded AF diagnosis assessed with CHA2DS2-VASc stroke risk score (SRS) and socio-demographic determinants of anticoagulation prescribing. The objective was to compare with national guidance recommendations, which recommend anticoagulant therapy for SRS ≥ 2, to determine if there were inequalities in management. METHODS: A cross-sectional design was used to analyze records from all (n = 41) general practices in one London borough. Patients were excluded if they were <18 years, had AF resolved or diagnosed < 3 months. Logistic regression identified socio-demographic factors associated with high SRS and anticoagulant prescribing. RESULTS: Of 2913 patients, 2885 (99.0%) had an SRS, and 2411 (83.6%) a score ≥ 2 and 82.9% (1999 of 2411) were prescribed anticoagulation. Women (compared with men), Black and Mixed/Multiple ethnic groups (compared with White), and those living in most deprived areas (compared with least) were more likely to have a score ≥ 2. Patients with a high SRS from Black and Mixed/Multiple ethnic groups and aged 18-74 years were less likely to be prescribed anticoagulation. CONCLUSION: We found evidence of age and ethnic inequity in anticoagulation prescribing for stroke prevention in patients with AF.

Journey to multimorbidity: longitudinal analysis exploring cardiovascular risk factors and sociodemographic determinants in an urban setting.

OBJECTIVE: To study the social determinants and cardiovascular risk factors for multimorbidity and the acquisition sequence of multimorbidity. DESIGN: Longitudinal study based on anonymised primary care data. SETTING: General practices in an urban multiethnic borough in London, UK. PARTICIPANTS: 332 353 patients aged ≥18 years. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Clinical and sociodemographic characteristics of patients with multimorbidity, defined as ≥3 of 12 long-term conditions (LTCs) selected according to high predicted healthcare use. Multilevel logistic regression was used to model social determinants and cardiovascular risk factors. Alluvial plots were constructed to illustrate multimorbidity acquisition sequences according to age, ethnicity and social deprivation. RESULTS: 5597 (1.7%) patients had ≥3 selected LTCs, the 'multimorbidity cohort'. The the most common LTCs were diabetes (63.0%) and chronic pain (CP) (42.8%). Social deprivation and ethnicity were independent determinants of multimorbidity: most compared with the least deprived quintile (adjusted OR (AOR) 1.56 (95% CI 1.41 to 1.72)); South Asian compared with white ethnicity (AOR 1.44 (95% CI 1.29 to 1.61)); and black compared with white ethnicity (AOR 0.86 (95% CI 0.80 to 0.92)). The included cardiovascular risk factors were relatively strong determinants of multimorbidity: hypertension (AOR 5.05 (95% CI 4.69 to 5.44)), moderate obesity (AOR 3.41 (95% CI 3.21 to 3.63)) and smoking (AOR 2.30 (95% CI 2.16 to 2.45)). The most common initial onset conditions were diabetes and depression; diabetes particularly in older and black ethnic groups; and depression particularly in younger, more deprived and white ethnicity groups. CP was less common as an initial condition. CONCLUSION: Our findings confirm the importance of age, social deprivation and ethnicity as determinants of multimorbidity. Smoking, obesity and hypertension as cardiovascular risk factors were stronger determinants of multimorbidity than deprivation or ethnicity. The acquisition sequence of multimorbidity is patterned by sociodemographic determinants. Understanding onset conditions of multimorbidity and cardiovascular cardiovascular risk factors may lead to the development of interventions to slow the progression of multimorbidity.

Evaluating quality and its determinants in lipid control for secondary prevention of heart disease and stroke in primary care: a study in an inner London Borough.

OBJECTIVES: To assess quality of management and determinants in lipid control for secondary prevention of cardiovascular disease (CVD) using multilevel regression models. DESIGN: Cross-sectional study. SETTING: Inner London borough, with a primary care registered population of 378,000 (2013). PARTICIPANTS: 48/49 participating general practices with 7869 patients on heart disease/stroke registers were included. OUTCOME MEASURES: (1) Recording of current total cholesterol levels and lipid control according to national evidence-based standards. (2) Assessment of quality by age, sex, ethnicity, deprivation, presence of other risks or comorbidity in meeting both lipid measurement and control standards. RESULTS: Some process standards were not met. Patients with a current cholesterol measurement >5 mmol/L were less likely to have a current statin prescription (adjusted OR=3.10; 95% CI 2.70 to 3.56). They were more likely to have clustering of other CVD risk factors. Women were significantly more likely to have raised cholesterol after adjustment for other factors (adjusted OR=1.74; 95% CI 1.53 to 1.98). CONCLUSIONS: In this study, the key factor that explained poor lipid control in people with CVD was having no current prescription record of a statin. Women were more likely to have poorly controlled cholesterol (independent of comorbid risk factors and after adjusting for age, ethnicity, deprivation index and practice-level variation). Women with CVD should be offered statin prescription and may require higher statin dosage for improved control.

Hypertension: a cross-sectional study of the role of multimorbidity in blood pressure control.

BACKGROUND: Hypertension is the most prevalent cardiovascular long-term condition in the UK and is associated with a high rate of multimorbidity (MM). Multimorbidity increases with age, ethnicity and social deprivation. Previous studies have yielded conflicting findings about the relationship between MM and blood pressure (BP) control. Our aim was to investigate the relationship between multimorbidity and systolic blood pressure (SBP) in patients with hypertension. METHODS: A cross-sectional analysis of anonymised primary care data was performed for a total of 299,180 adult patients of whom 31,676 (10.6 %) had a diagnosis of hypertension. We compared mean SBP in patients with hypertension alone and those with one or more co-morbidities and analysed the effect of type of comorbidity on SBP. We constructed a regression model to identify the determinants of SBP control. RESULTS: The strongest predictor of mean SBP was the number of comorbidities, ß -0.13 (p < 0.05). Other predictors included Afro-Caribbean ethnicity, ß 0.05 (p < 0.05), South Asian ethnicity, ß -0.03 (p < 0.05), age, ß 0.05 (p < 0.05), male gender, ß 0.05 (p < 0.05) and number of hypotensive drugs ß 0.06 (p < 0.05). SBP was lower by a mean of 2.03 mmHg (-2.22, -1.85) for each additional comorbidity and was lower in MM regardless of the type of morbidity. CONCLUSION: Hypertensive patients with MM had lower SBP than those with hypertension alone; the greater the number of MM, the lower the SBP. We found no evidence that BP control was related to BP targets, medication category or specific co-morbidity. Further research is needed to determine whether consultation rate, "white-coat hypertension" or medication adherence influence BP control in MM.