AUTHOR=Mackenzie Lynette , McIntyre Anne TITLE=How Do General Practitioners (GPs) Engage in Falls Prevention With Older People? A Pilot Survey of GPs in NHS England Suggests a Gap in Routine Practice to Address Falls Prevention JOURNAL=Frontiers in Public Health VOLUME=7 YEAR=2019 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/public-health/articles/10.3389/fpubh.2019.00032 DOI=10.3389/fpubh.2019.00032 ISSN=2296-2565 ABSTRACT=
Falls are highly prevalent amongst older people and have substantial financial and social costs for health services and the community. Prevention of falls is the key to managing this threat to older people. General practitioners can identify older people at risk of falls on their caseloads. Once identified, actions can be taken to reduce the risk of falls by referring to appropriate services available in the community, such as allied health practitioners. However, the level of engagement in evidence based falls prevention by GPs is unknown. This study aimed to explore how British general practitioners (GPs) address falls prevention with older people, and to determine if there are any gaps in practice. As a pilot study, another aim was to test the feasibility of methods to survey GPs, if a larger survey was warranted from the findings. An on-line cross-sectional survey was distributed by email to all the Clinical Commissioning Groups in NHS England (