Regular Research ArticlesApart From Nihilism and Stigma: What Influences General Practitioners' Accuracy in Identifying Incident Dementia?
Section snippets
Study Design
The baseline cohort consists of 3,327 patients participating in a prospective study on early detection of mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and dementia within the framework of the German Study on Ageing, Cognition and Dementia in Primary Care Patients. The baseline recruitment is reported in detail elsewhere.19 In brief, patients were chosen at random from the files of 138 GP surgeries in six metropolitan study centers (Hamburg, Bonn, Germany, Düsseldorf, Leipzig, Mannheim, and Munich, Germany).
Sample
In baseline, 138 GPs (19–29 per center) recruited a total of 3,327 patients (mean 24.1 ± 11.73). 74.5% of the recruiting GPs were male, GPs' mean age was 50.9 ± 6.5 years, and mean years in practice was 14.9 ± 6.7. Assessments took place between January 2003 (start of baseline) and September 2007 (end of FU 2). Generally, Follow-up 1 was scheduled at 18 months and Follow-up 2 at 36 months after baseline-assessment. From the baseline sample, 2,402 patients were eligible for analysis in FU 1 and
DISCUSSION
GPs recognized approximately half of the incident dementia cases, which is between the estimates derived from cross-sectional studies on recognition of mild cases.30, 31 Consistent with cross-sectional findings, we found GPs' recognition to be associated with dementia severity (better in moderate and severe cases). Regarding the clinical application of diagnostic skills, the clinical utility of the GP judgment is “poor” regarding case finding but “excellent” for ruling out dementia. Hence, a
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The authors thank both all participating patients and their general practitioners for their good collaboration.
The German Study on Ageing, Cognition and Dementia in Primary Care Patients (AgeCoDe) is part of the German Competence Network Dementia (KND) and German Competence Network Degenerative Dementias (KNDD) and was funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (grants KND: 01GI0102, 01GI0420, 01GI0422, 01GI0423, 01GI0429, 01GI0431, 01GI0433, 01GI0434 and grants KNDD: 01GI0710, 01GI0711, 01GI0712, 01GI0713, 01GI0714, 01GI0715, 01GI0716).
Funding had no influence on design, methods, subject recruitment, data collection, analysis, or preparation of the paper. Researchers were independent from the funding organization. All authors had full access to all of the data (including statistical reports and tables) in the study and can take responsibility for the integrity of the data and the accuracy of the data analysis.
The ethics committees of the participating centers approved the study. Written informed consent was obtained from all GPs and patients.
GPs who recruited patients into the study are listed as follows: Hamburg: Gundula Bormann, Winfried Bouché, Doris Fischer-Radizi, Michael Funke, Heike Gatermann, Wolfgang Herzog, Petra Hütter, Stefanie Kavka-Ziegenhagen, Günther Klötzl, Bernd-Uwe Krug, Dietrich Lau, Ursula Linn, Andrea Moritz, Karl-Christian Münter, Detlef Niemann, Klaus Richard-Klein, Walter Schreiber, Ursula Schröder-Höch, Gerhard Schulze, Klaus Stelter, Carl-Otto Stolzenbach, Ljudmila Titova, Klaus Weidner, Otto-Peter Witt, Eckehard Zeigert; Mannheim: Gerhard Arnold, Veit-Harold Bauer, Werner Besnier, Hanna Böttcher-Schmidt, Hartmut Grella, Gernot Kunzendorf, Ingrid Ludwig, Manfred Mayer, Hubert Mühlig, Arnt Müller, Adolf Noky, Helmut Perleberg, Carsten Rieder, Michael Rosen, Georg Scheer, Michael Schilp, Matthias Schneider, Jürgen Wachter, Brigitte Weingärtner, Hans-Georg Willhauck; Bonn, Germany: Jörg Eimers-Kleene, Klaus Fischer, Maria Goebel-Schlatholt, Peter Gülle, Wolf-Dietrich Honig, Hans Jürgen Kaschell, Hanna Liese, Manfred Marx, Eberhard Prechtel, Heinz-Peter Romberg, Heribert Schützendorf, Annemarie Straimer, Martin Tschoke, Karl-Michael Werner; Halstenbek: Herrmut Mayen; Königswinter: Theodor Alfen; Bad Honnef: Klaus Weckbecker; Niederkassel: Inge Bürfent; Alfter-Oedekoven: Johann von Aswege; Erfstadt-Liblar: Arndt Uhlenbrock; Windeck-Herchen: Wolf-Rüdiger Weisbach; Leipzig: Martina Amm, Heinz-Michael Assmann, Horst Bauer, Barbara Bräutigam, Jochen Ebert, Angelika Gabriel, Eva Hager, Gunter Kässner, Ina Lipp, Thomas Lipp, Ute Mühlmann, Gabi Müller, Thomas Paschke, Gabriele Rauchmaul, Ina Schmalbruch, Holger Schmidt, Hans-Christian Taut, Ute Voß, Bettina Winkler, Sabine Ziehbold; München, Germany: Eugen Allwein, Guntram Bloß, Peter Dick, Johann Eiber, Lutz-Ingo Fischer, Peter Friedrich, Helga Herbst, Andreas Hofmann, Günther Holthausen, Karl-Friedrich Holtz, Ulf Kahmann, Elke Kirchner, Hans Georg Kirchner, Luitpold Knauer, Andreas Koeppel, Heinz Koschine, Walter Krebs, Franz Kreuzer, Karl Ludwig Maier, Christoph Mohr, Elmar Schmid, Gabriel Schmidt, Johann Thaller; Haar: Richard Ellersdorfer, Michael Speth; Düsseldorf: Angela Ackermann, Pauline Berger, Florinela Cupsa, Barbara Damanakis, Klaus-Wolfgang Ebeling, Tim Oliver Flettner, Michael Frenkel, Friederike Ganßauge, Kurt Gillhausen, Hans-Christian Heede, Uwe Hellmessen, Benjamin Hodgson, Bernhard Hoff, Helga Hümmerich, Boguslaw-Marian Korman, Dieter Lüttringhaus, Dirk Matzies, Vladimir Miasnikov, Wolfgang Josef Peters, Birgitt Richter-Polynice, Gerhard Erich Richard Schiller, Ulrich Schott, Andre Schumacher, Harald Siegmund, Winfried Thraen, Roland Matthias Unkelbach, Clemens Wirtz.
Further members of the AgeCoDe study group (German Study on Ageing, Cognition and Dementia in Primary Care Patients): Wolfgang Blank, Michaela Buchwald, Mirjam Colditz, Moritz Daerr, Sandra Eiffländer-Gorfer, Marion Eisele, Sven Heinrich, Hanna Kaduszkiewicz, Teresa Kaufeler, Hans-Helmut König, Tobias Luck, Melanie Luppa, Manfred Mayer, Julia Olbrich, Heinz-Peter Romberg, Anja Rudolph, Melanie Sauder, Britta Schuermann, and Michael Wagner.
Contributors: MP, HHA, HvdB, and WM contributed to study conception and design; all authors contributed to recruitment of GPs and patients, data acquisition, analysis, and interpretation; BW organized data management and assured data quality; BW and MP performed the statistical analyses based on the discussions of all authors; MP and AF drafted the article; HHA, AW, and HvdB critically discussed all versions of the manuscript; all authors revised and finally approved the version to be published. MP is guarantor.