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The Research Agenda for General Practice/Family

Medicine and Primary Health Care in Europe.
Part 1. Background and methodology 1
Article in The European journal of general practice December 2009
DOI: 10.3109/13814780903452184 Source: PubMed
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The Research Agenda for General Practice/Family Medicine and

Primary Health Care in Europe. Part 1. Background and methodology1
EVA HUMMERS-PRADIER1, MARTIN BEYER2, PATRICK CHEVALLIER3,

SOPHIA EILAT-TSANANI4,5, CHRISTOS LIONIS6, LIEVE PEREMANS7,8,
DAVORINA PETEK9, IMRE RURIK10, JEAN KARL SOLER11, HENRI EJH STOFFERS12,
PINAR TOPSEVER13, MEHMET UNGAN14 & PAUL VAN ROYEN15
1Institute
of General Practice, Hannover Medical School, Hannover, Germany, 2Institute for General Practice, University of
Frankfurt, Frankfurt, Germany, 3Department of General Practice, Saint-Quentin University Versailles, France, 4Department of
Family Medicine, Emek Medical Center, Faculty of Health Sciences, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel, 5Afula and the
valleys, Clalit Health Services, Northern District, 6Clinic of Social and Family Medicine, and Department of Social Medicine,
University of Crete, Crete, Greece, 7Department of Primary and Interdisciplinary University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium,
8Department of Youth Health,Vrije Universiteit of Brussels, Brussels, Belgium, 9Department of Family Medicine, Medical School,
University of Ljubljana, Slovenia, 10Department of Family Medicine, University Debrecen, Hungary, 11Mediterranean Institute of
Primary Care, Attard, Malta, 12Department of General Practice, School of Public Health and Primary Care (CAPHRI),
Maastricht University Medical Centre, Maastricht, The Netherlands, 13Department of Family Medicine, Acibadem University,
Istanbul, Turkey, 14Middle East Technical University Medical Centre, Ankara, Turkey, 15Department of Primary and
Interdisciplinary Care, University of Antwerp, Belgium
Abstract
At the WONCA Europe conference 2009 the recently published Research Agenda for General Practice/Family Medicine and
Primary Health Care in Europe was presented. The Research Agenda is a background paper and reference manual for GPs/
family doctors, researchers and policy makers, providing advocacy of general practice/family medicine GP/FM in Europe. The
Research Agenda summarizes the evidence relating to the core competencies and characteristics of the WONCA Europe
denition of GP/FM, and its meaning for researchers and policy makers. Evidence gaps and research needs are pointed out
to provide a basis for planning research for which there is a need and for action that may inuence health and research policy,
i.e. applying/lobbying for research funds. WONCA Europe and its associated networks and special interest groups could
consider the agendas research priorities when planning future conferences, courses, or projects, and for funding purposes.
The European Journal of General Practice will publish a series of articles based on this document. In this rst article, background,
objectives, methodology and relevant literature are discussed. In subsequent articles, the results will be presented.
Key words: General practice/family medicine, research agenda
The European General Practice Research Network

(EGPRN, www.egprn.org) recently published their
Research Agenda for General Practice/Family Medicine and Primary Health Care in Europe and presented it at the WONCA Europe conference in Basel
in September 2009 (1). The Research Agenda was
developed upon request of WONCA Europe, using
both a systematic methodology and expertise from
many European countries. It could also serve as a

reference paper worldwide, as no such documents
exist for other WONCA regions yet. The Research
1Based on: Hummers-Pradier E, et al. Research Agenda for
General Practice/Family Medicine and Primary Health Care in
Europe. Maastricht: European General Practice Research
Network; 2009. pp. 712, 379.
Correspondence: Eva Hummers-Pradier, Institute of General Practice, Hannover Medical School, Carl-Neuberg-Str. 1, 30625 Hannover, Germany. E-mail:
hummers-pradier.eva@mh-hannover.de
(Received 30 October 2009; accepted 30 October 2009)

ISSN 1381-4788 print/ISSN 1751-1402 online 2009 Informa UK Ltd. (Informa Healthcare, Taylor & Francis AS)
DOI: 10.3109/13814780903452184
244
E. Hummers-Pradier et al.
Agenda intends to complement the EURACT

Teaching Agenda (2), which addresses academic and
vocational training.
The European Journal of General Practice will publish a series of articles based on this document. In
this rst article, objectives, background, methodology and relevant literature are discussed.

Background
General practice/family medicine is the core discipline
of primary medical care and the cornerstone of many
healthcare systems in Europe. Its potential is large:
the large majority of European citizens have a general
practitioner (GP) and regular contact with him or her.
In healthcare systems where the GP acts as a gate
keeper, 9095% of all patient complaints remain in
long time primary care (even when specialists are temporarily involved). Of all reasons for encounter, 80%
can denitely be solved in primary care (3,4).
In 2002, a European denition of general practice/
family medicine was published, and revised in 2005.
It informs policy makers, funding organisations and
others outside the eld about the essential role of
family medicine within health systems at both national
and pan-European levels, and intends to guide the
agendas for teaching, research and quality assurance
in GP/FM in Europe (5,6). The denition describes
eleven essential characteristics of the discipline and
translates them into six core competencies (Figure 1).
General practice/family medicine and primary
health care play an important role in the functioning
of the whole system of healthcare, which was only
recently emphasized by WHO and several reviews

(712). Stareld has shown that the strength of a
countrys primary care system is inversely associated
with all-cause mortality, all-cause premature mortality and cause-specic premature mortality from
asthma and bronchitis, emphysema and pneumonia,
cardiovascular disease and heart disease (1315).
Strong primary care systems and practice characteristics, such as geographic regulation, continuity of
care over time, coordination and community orientation are correlated with improved population health,
and primary care (in contrast to specialist care) is
associated with a more equitable distribution of
health in populations (16,17). A gatekeeper role of
the GP is seen to be an important cost-control measure and prevents harm due to unnecessary hospitalization and over-investigation (18).
Most of these papers refer to primary health care
as being delivered by a cooperating multi-professional
team, coordinated by GPs. This teamwork concept,
however, is not yet implemented fully in all European
countries, where forms of organisation vary a lot.
Whereas GPs in some countries have patients registered at their practice and the doctors perform a
gate-keeping function, thus exclusively ensuring primary medical care, in other countries primary care
is a territory which is debated between GPs and multiple community based specialists that patients can
access on their own initiative. Nurses work as part of
a primary health care team in some countries, or as
independent or community nurses in others. Research
labelled as primary health care research, consequently, has been conducted in general practice settings as well as in nursing and sometimes also within
Figure 1. The WONCA tree: Core competencies and characteristics of general practice/family medicine.

The Research Agenda for GP/FM and Primary Health Care in Europe. Part 1
community specialist settings or within other healthcare professions. The focus of the research agenda,
however, is primary care delivered by GPs and multiprofessional practice teams coordinated by them.
General practice research has reached different
stages of professionalization and capacity in different
European countries. It was rst developed in those
(mainly north-western European) countries that have
built their health care systems on the principles of
generalist-based access to the more specialized levels
of health care (gate-keeper, referral). Countries
where GPs work in parallel with other community
based specialists found that the academic establishment and, therefore, the ability to research in general
practice settings was more difcult to initiate and
develop. The general pattern is that individual pioneers perform practice-based research and obtain
degrees (stage 1), then gradually academic chairs focussing on medical education are installed (stage 2), and
nally, more extensive research projects are developed through which further research capacity can be
built (stage 3). Currently, European countries show
various stages of development of general practice
research capacity: countries where academic family
medicine is virtually non-existent (stage 1), countries
where university departments of family medicine
are mainly involved in medical education (stage 2),
and countries whereclinical or health services
research in general practice is developing (stages
23) (19,20).
General practice research has been a subject of
animated discussion in recent years (2123). Some
authors have even questioned whether GP/FM
research has any future. Many others pointed out
that most clinical and preventive care is delivered in
primary care and needs to be underpinned by
appropriate evidence. They also emphasize that GP/
FM research enhances the role of GPs in health care
systems, and improves the effectiveness and efciency of health care services as well as the health
of populations (24,25).
The European denition of GP/FM has been
important in shaping the discipline, outlining its content and research domains and its role for the twenty-rst century. However, to date, it had not been
lined systematically with research evidence (26). The
objectives of developing the research agenda were to
provide guidance for further research and policy, and
advocacy of GP/FM in Europe (Table I).
Methodology
Starting points
The basis for the European Research Agenda were
the prerequisites, needs and priorities of European
245
Table I. Aims and objectives of the Research Agenda for General

Practice/Family Medicine and Primary Health Care in Europe.
The research agenda is a reference paper
Summarizing the existing evidence on aspects of the
denition of GP/FM and related tasks of GPs, and its
meaning for researchers and policy makers.
Appraising the methodology used in current GP/FM
research.
Highlighting research needs and evidence gaps, i.e. for the
purpose of research planning and funding or for funding
decisions.
Providing a basis for proactive, positive action thereby
inuencing health and research policy, i.e. applying/
lobbying for research funds.
Indicating issues of imminent importance for countries
with a low capacity for research in view of a development
plan for GP/FM research in a start-up setting.
GP research as reected by several key informant

surveys and SWOT analyses on research needs and
perceived barriers, in particular an initial EGPRN
national representatives workshop (20), and the
semi-structured annual reports of the EGPRN
national representatives. Additionally, all abstracts
presented in EGPRN conferences from 20012007
were classied for theme and methodology, thus
giving an overview of research activity of European
GPs presenting in EGPRN (WONCA Europe
abstracts could not be classied likewise, as they are
neither published in a scientic journal nor archived
systematically) (27).
Framework for literature review
The Research Agenda authors then performed a
comprehensive literature review of GP/FM research,
starting from the domain of general practice in Europe
as described in the six core competencies (and the 11
characteristics) of the WONCA Denition (Figure 1)
(5). A second perspective was formed by the core
areas of GP/FM research, summarized as: (a) clinical
research (with outcomes at a patient level, measuring
patients health issues including function or quality
of life); (b) health services research (focussing on
doctor or system related questions and outcomes);
and (c) research on education and teaching in general
practice (20,25). Adequate research methodology
was added as a fourth area. These areas were then
superposed to the core competencies to form a virtual
grid of research domains. Challenges for primary care
which were not mentioned in the original document
of the WONCA Denition but of potential importance for future GP/FM were added to the research
domains and topics to be searched (i.e. the application of genomic knowledge in preventive and
246

therapeutic health care, medico-ethical and medicolegal implications, and the use and potential of electronic medical records or information technology).
Additionally, a rough semi-quantitative overview
of research themes was performed in order to identify well-covered topics and blank spots. This was
achieved by searching PubMed for RCTs or clinical
trials labelled with the MeSH term family practice
or general practice, and published since 2003. These
were then classied according to clinical or diseaserelated or else system related/public health theme
groups.
Literature review related to core competencies
Each research domain related to a core competency was
reviewed by a subgroup of the author team. They
searched PubMed using MeSH terms related to the
core competencies or specic sub-elds (for details see
the appendices of the full text version, and the subsequent articles of this series), mostly crossed with family
practice, general practice or primary health care.
Several strategies were used to extend searches
where ndings were either scarce or a domain seemed
poorly covered:
Keywords of relevant studies for each core competency were retrieved in addition to MeSH
terms and included into the searches.
All related MeSH terms for each entry term (or
key word) were identied and included in the
search strategy.
MeSH terms of relevant articles were used for
further searches, and explode searches for
related articles of relevant papers.
In some instances, searches were not limited to
articles labelled with family practice, general
practice or primary health care in order to
extend coverage of the domain.
This mainly applied to the research domains of primary care management, comprehensive approach,
community orientation, holistic approach, and some
subchapters of specic problem solving (genetics,
chronic care, disease management programmes).
In domains with a large volume of references,
additional lters were used and reviews limited to
meta-analyses, systematic reviews, clinical trials or
randomized controlled trials (RCTs), thus excluding
editorials, unsystematic reviews or opinion papers.
Articles which were only related to nursing (and not
to general practice) were also excluded. This mainly
applied to the research domains focussed on personcentred care and partly to specic problem solving,
namely diagnosis, therapy, and quality of care related
research. Literature searches were mostly limited to

English and to some extent French, German, or
Dutch language papers. All articles identied through
the searches were initially screened by title and
abstract, and selected if having a well dened research
question, appropriate methodology and setting, as
well as clearly presented, consistent results, and if the
study was considered relevant for European general
practice/primary care. Selected abstracts were compared to the domain descriptions and the methodologies used. Abstracts and full text articles were
then reviewed and methodology, results, and conclusions from the texts compiled. Landmark articles
were identied if present.
Each authorgroup then summarized its results
with regard to the research domains and concepts.
Existing evidence on competencies and related
research questions was identied and summarized,
as well as the type of study and methods/instruments
used. Conclusions were drawn after reection and
repeated small group discussion until consensus was
reached. Subsequently, missing evidence and research
gaps were identied by comparing the search results
to the particular domain description, both in small
group and plenary author group discussions. Results
and conclusions were then compiled in separate
chapters for each research domain and core competency, each comprising a denition of the domain
and a summary overview of the literature review, and
point out research aims and needs as well as appropriate methodologies. They will be presented in the
next articles of this series.
The whole author team iteratively discussed
search strategies, their ndings and resulting summaries and conclusions, in order to consent the
Research Agenda. Preliminary and full results of the
whole process were presented and discussed in various workshops and council or executive meetings at
several WONCA Europe and EGPRN conferences.
A draft version had been made available on the internet and feedback on a draft version was sought from
ofce holders of WONCA and its networks, national
colleges of GP/FM and other European opinion
leaders in GP/FM. All feedback was discussed and
incorporated into the nal document.
Discussion of the methodology
The Research Agenda utilized the European denition of GP/FM to provide information on the current
state of the evidence and research needs related to it.
The outcomes, i.e. the proposed research priorities
together with appropriate methodologies for their
study, should be applicable in most European countries and possibly also countries outside Europe, if
aspects of research capacity are taken into account.

The six core competencies of the European Definition were chosen to structure the literature review
and the text of the Research Agenda as an original
approach to evidence. Nevertheless, this framework
is not the only possible way to structure an agenda
and it might be considered unusual. There is a considerable difference between this approach and the
way research develops normally. When planning
research projects, topics are usually chosen locally
with regard to local interests, specic questions and
incentives. An alternative structure, implying different literature search strategies based on individual
research questions (for example, on management of
a disease, or effectiveness of a dened preventive
intervention, or comparing national healthcare systems), would have given more detailed or in-depth
results on the individual question. However, it would
have been impossible to cover the entire eld of GP/
FM this way. Additionally, each chosen approach
would have presupposed a certain view of the discipline, which would probably not be equally acceptable or relevant everywhere in Europe. The European
Denition is generally accepted, summarizes the
essentials of the discipline and thus provided a feasible and relevant framework.
This Research Agenda is mainly based on a comprehensive literature review. PubMed was used as the
primary search engine; other literature databases,
such as Embase and ERIC were not searched systematically. This approach excluded many national GP/
FM journals. However, the author team was multinational and drew on their expertise and overview of
local and grey literature. To select and appraise the
literature for all domains, the authors did neither use
a systematic quality appraisal checklist nor a fully
identical procedure. This simply was not feasible or
appropriate. However, generally acknowledged criteria were applied to select and appraise research papers,
as described in peer review procedures of research
journals, or literature on critical appraisal. Search
procedures, appraisals and summaries were reviewed
and discussed several times by various members of
the author team until consensus was reached.
Discussion of other literature on research in
GP/FM
In 1966, McWhinney described the research domain
of family medicine for the rst time. It featured the
epidemiology of illness in primary care, clinical
aspects such as the evaluation of symptoms, diagnostic
signs or tests and psychosocial aspects (28). In the
following decades, clinical strategies and a focus on
the family were added to this agenda, as well as
research on educational methods, health services and
policy related studies (2933). Early in the 1990s,
247
the importance of researching the patients perspective in addition to the doctors view was emphasized,
as well as the relationship between the family doctor
and the patient and his or her family. The family
physicians responsibility towards the community
was also highlighted (34,35).
Since 2000, a number of opinion articles and
some research papers have contributed to the discussion. Several experts have called for a research agenda
in order to clarify and prioritise research needs in
GP/FM (20,25), and to provide the specic contribution of GP/FM to medicine as a science (26), and
to health services and policy (3638).
Some articles evaluated specic or local situations. US researchers studied the position of GP/FM
researchers compared to other specialties when applying for research grants (39,40), or research capacity
as reected by trainees or faculty of US family medicine departments (41,42). The output of UK programmes to promote GP/FM research was also
evaluated (43,44). Social conditions and policy in
developing countries were reviewed (45,46), as well
as research needs concerning rural practice (27).
The aims, content and expected outcomes of GP/
FM research have been considered in a more general
perspective by international experts in the eld, i.e.
during the WONCA Research Conference in Kingston,
Ontario, in 2003, and its published reports (26,25,
37,38,46,4853), as well as some subsequent articles
(54,55). The historical development of research and
research agendas has been reviewed (35,53). All of
these papers dene infrastructural requirements and
highlight the importance of GP/FM and related
research for health services and health policy. They
point out that the contribution of high quality GP/
FMled primary care is essential for an effective
healthcare system and that stakeholders increasingly
recognize this fact.
Results of GP/FM research inform policy makers
on how evidence-based healthcare can be delivered
in a sustainable, cost-effective and equitable way, and
thus underpin social and ethical decision making in
order to improve health globally. It helps to bridge
the gap between fundamental biomedical or clinical
research and the delivery of care to a general population, and forms a link between medical research and
the humanistic sciences. In order to achieve this,
funding should be adequate and directed at research
projects which meet patients needs, address conditions which contribute signicantly to a populations
burden of illness, and consider factors which inuence the implementation of results. International professional organisations or scientic societies have a role
as clearing houses providing databases of information,
access to research instruments and in facilitating
training and networking of researchers. It is generally

248
acknowledged that GP/FM needs to increase its

research capacity and several papers focus on how to
achieve this, mostly at a system level (38,50,52,54),
or with regard to the development of networks of
research practices (25,43,46,51,56).
Several articles have attempted to draw up research
agendas by suggesting themes that are perceived
as particularly important. In fact, some so-called
research agendas are in fact limited to very specic
topics or areas of research, for example unexplained
symptoms (57), health services in rural areas (47),
primary care informatics (58), mental health (59), or
choice of GP/FM as a career (60). Other review
papers have a wider, more general perspective; many,
including the Kingston papers, were written by
renowned international experts. However, none had
a systematic approach or used a predened thematic
framework, and none linked methodologies to research
themes. Nevertheless, some papers stated that using
a wide range of methodologies, including approaches
initially developed by disciplines other than medicine, is essential for GP/FM research, and is one of
its strengths (26).
Implications
The research agenda summarizes the evidence relating to the core competencies and characteristics of
the WONCA Europe Denition of GP/FM, and its
meaning for researchers and policy makers. Evidence
gaps and research needs are pointed out to provide
a basis for planning research for which there is a need
and for action that may inuence health and research
policy, i.e. applying or lobbying for research funds.
The Research Agenda enables WONCA Europe and
its associated networks and special interest groups to
reconsider the evidence base for the denition, and
review their positions and statements if necessary.
Since the document is open to amendments, the
authors welcome further discussion.
Acknowledgments
The EGPRN and the authors of the research agenda
should like to thank WONCA Europe for funding
several meetings as well as the costs of layout and
printing of this paper.
The authors gratefully acknowledge the contributions and feedback from many institutions and
individuals, namely the Council and individual members of EGPRN, the Executive Board of WONCA
Europe, EQuIP, EURACT and other WONCA Europe
networks, WONCA Europe Special Interest groups,
and several university departments of GP/FM in
Europe.
The authors should also like to thank the participants of the workshops where the research agenda
drafts were presented for their contributions.
The following persons deserve special thanks for
their detailed feedback: Professor Andr Knottnerus,
MD PhD, Department of General Practice, School
for Public Health and Primary Care (CAPHRI),
Maastricht University, Maastricht and President of
the Health Council of the Netherlands, The Hague,
The Netherlands; Associate Professor Harm van
Marwijk, MD PhD, Department of General Practice,
EMGO Institute for Health and Care Research of
VU University Medical Centre, Amsterdam, The
Netherlands; Dr Johannes Hauswaldt, MD MPH,
Institute of General Practice, Hannover Medical
School, Hannover, Germany; Dr Bettina Berger,
Institute for Transcultural Health Sciences, European
University Viadrina, Frankfurt (Oder), Germany.
Declaration of interest: The authors report having
on conicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.
All authors are members of EGPRN and active in
its committees. Additionally, EHP is member of the
WONCA Europe Executive Board. The Research
Agenda was supported solely by EGPRN and grants
from WONCA Europe.
Full text versions of the research agenda

Electronic versions (pdf) are available from: www.
egprn.org
Paper versions can be requested from the Coordinating Centre of EGPRN, Mrs Hanny Prick.
E-mail: hanny.prick@hag.unimaas.nl
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European Journal of General Practice, 2010; Early Online: 19
BACKGROUND PAPER
Eur J Gen Pract Downloaded from informahealthcare.com by Medizinischen Hochschule

Series: The research agenda for general practice/family medicine

and primary health care in Europe. Part 2. Results: Primary care
management and community orientation1
EVA. HUMMERS-PRADIER1, MARTIN BEYER2, PATRICK CHEVALLIER3,

SOPHIA EILAT-TSANANI4,5, CHRISTOS LIONIS6, LIEVE PEREMANS7,8,
DAVORINA PETEK9, IMRE RURIK10, JEAN KARL SOLER11, HENRI EJH STOFFERS12,
PINAR TOPSEVER13, MEHMET UNGAN14 & PAUL VAN ROYEN15
1Institute of General Practice, Hannover Medical School, Hannover, Germany; 2Institute for General Practice, University of
Frankfurt, Frankfurt, Germany; 3Department of General Practice, Saint-Quentin University Versailles, France; 4Department of
Family Medicine, Emek Medical Center, Faculty of Health Sciences, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel; 5Afula and the
valleys, Clalit Health Services, Northern District; 6Clinic of Social and Family Medicine, and Department of Social Medicine,
University of Crete, Crete, Greece; 7Department of Primary, Interdisciplinary University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium;
8Department of Youth Health,Vrije Universiteit of Brussels, Brussels, Belgium; 9Department of Family Medicine, Medical School,
University of Ljubljana, Slovenia; 10Department of Family Medicine, University Debrecen, Hungary; 11Mediterranean Institute
of Primary Care, Attard, Malta; 12Department of General Practice, School of Public Health and Primary Care (CAPHRI),
Maastricht University Medical Centre, Maastricht, The Netherlands; 13Department of Family Medicine, Acibadem University,
Istanbul, Turkey; 14Middle East Technical University Medical Centre, Ankara, Turkey; 15Department of Primary and
Interdisciplinary Care, University of Antwerp, Belgium
Abstract
At the WONCA Europe conference 2009 the recently published Research Agenda for General Practice/Family Medicine
and Primary Health Care in Europe was presented. It is a background paper and reference manual, providing advocacy
of general practice/family medicine (GP/FM) in Europe. The Research Agenda summarizes the evidence relating to the
core competencies and characteristics of the WONCA Europe denition of GP/FM, and its implications for general practitioners/family doctors, researchers and policy makers. The European Journal of General Practice publishes a series of articles
based on this document. In a rst article, background, objectives, and methodology were discussed. In this second article,
the results for the core competencies primary care management and community orientation are presented. Though there
is a large body of research on various aspects of primary care management, it represents a very scattered rather than a
meta view. Many studies focus on care for specic diseases, the primary/secondary care interface, or the implications of
electronic patient records. Cost efciency or process indicators of quality are current outcomes. Current literature on community orientation is mainly descriptive, and focuses on either care for specic diseases, or specic patient populations, or
on the uptake of preventive services. Most papers correspond poorly to the WONCA concept. For both core competencies,
there is a lack of research with a longitudinal perspective and/or relevant health or quality of life outcomes as well as research
on patients preferences and education for organizational aspects of GP/FM.
Key words: General practice/family medicine, primary care management, community oriented health care, research agenda
Background
1Based
on: Hummers-Pradier E, et al. Research Agenda for General

Practice/Family Medicine and Primary Health Care in Europe.
Maastricht: European General Practice Research Network, 2009:
pp. 1315, 2728.

Medicine and Primary Healthcare in Europe was
published in September 2009 by the European
Correspondence: Eva Hummers-Pradier, Institute of General Practice, Hannover Medical School, Carl-Neuberg-Str. 1, 30625 Hannover, Germany.
E-mail: hummers-pradier.eva@mh-hannover.de
(Received 13 December 2009; accepted 16 December 2009)

DOI: 10.3109/13814780903563725

Figure 1. The WONCA tree: Core competencies and characteristics of general practice/family medicine.
General Practice Research Network (EGPRN) (1).

It summarizes the evidence relating to the core
competencies and characteristics of the WONCA
Europe denition of General Practice/Family Medicine (GP/FM) (Figure 1) (2), and indicates evidence gaps and research needs. The European
Journal of General Practice presents this document
as a series of articles. Background, objectives and
methodology were presented and discussed in part
1. Briey, the Research Agenda is based on international key informant surveys and expert consensus and a comprehensive literature review on
research domains related to each of the six core
competencies of the European denition, covering
health services research, clinical research, educational research and methodology issues (3). In this
and the following issues, the results will be presented. This article reects on the two core competencies which deal primarily with organizational
aspects of GP/FM, i.e. primary care management
and community orientation.
Definition of the research domains
According to the WONCA Europe denition of
GP/FM (2), primary care management includes the
ability to:
Manage primary contact with patients, dealing
with unselected problems, and providing open
and unlimited access;
Cover the full range of health conditions;
Make available to the patient the appropriate
services within the health care system;
Coordinate care with other professionals in primary care, other specialists and secondary care;
Master effective and appropriate care provision
and health service utilisation, using resources
efciently;
Act as an advocate for the patient, i.e. protecting
them from harm which may ensue through
unnecessary screening, testing and treatment.
Our research domain also includes the clinical
effectiveness and health systems effects of models of
managing particular health problems in primary
care, i.e. dened disease management programmes,
and ways of organizing care within a practice or primary health care team. Educational research in this
eld comprises management skills at a health system
and practice level, as well as education for collaborating medical professionals with a range of backgrounds
and expertise.
The core competency of community orientation
includes the ability to reconcile the health needs of
individual patients and the health needs of the community in balance with available resources (2). Presentation of the paradigm of community oriented
medicine started with work of Kark in the 1950s and
1960s (4), and received a more structured denition
during the 1980s. According to this denition, the
following topics can be included in the research
domain: health needs reecting individual health
needs in the context of a persons environment, as
well as community health needs, and possible conicts between these two. It also includes the specic
context-related decision making process, and cooperation with other professionals and agencies according to these health needs.
Series; Research Agenda for GP/FM. Part 2
Table I. Search strategies: Primary care management.

organization and administration [MeSH Terms] combined with primary health care [Majr MeSH] and/or family practice [MeSH]
practice management combined with primary health care [Majr MeSH] and/or family practice [MeSH], health services
[MeSH], education, medical [Majr MeSH]
health services accessibility[Majr MeSH] combined with primary health care [Majr MeSH] and/or family practice [MeSH]
medical records systems, computerized [MeSH] combined with primary health care [Majr MeSH] and/or family practice [MeSH]
The research domains of primary care management and community orientation overlap with each
other, and to some extent also with the competencies
of patient centred care, specic problem solving
skills, and comprehensive approach. These research
domains also reect three of Starelds four central
components of primary care, i.e. accessibility, coordination (dened as the degree to which the primary
care provider manages all the patients health care
and possesses the necessary infrastructure to do so)
and comprehensiveness (there dened as the provision of a range of services broad enough to meet all
common needs in the population) (57). Her fourth
component, longitudinality or continuity, will be
considered with the core competency of personcentred care in this research agenda.
Methodologyoverview of search strategies

A general description of the methodology of our
evaluationkey informant surveys, a comprehensive
literature review and expert consensuswas presented in the rst part of this series (3).
Literature on primary care management was
sought using the MeSH terms and combinations
shown in Table I.
As there is no explicit MeSH term for community
oriented primary care, combinations of several terms
were used, as shown in Table II.
Additional searches using seek related articles
options, MeSH terms of relevant articles, free text
searches or search strings not limited to family practice or primary health care were used to extend the
overview. Literature was reviewed and consented
conclusions were drawn according to the procedure
described in part 1 of this series (3).
Results
Primary care management
The research eld of primary care management is
very large. The retrieved literature gave very scattered results, rather than a meta-view. Although there
have been few systematic comparisons, it seems that
there is little evidence in favour of any particular
organizational, funding or workforce model. However, it
seems obvious that the organization and workforce
of general practice has to be developed further in
order to meet current and future requirements of
primary care management better. Evidence shows
advantages for health systems that rely relatively
more on primary health care and general practice in
comparison to those systems tending towards specialist care, in terms of better population health outcomes, improved equity, access and continuity and
lower cost (8,9).
Common outcome measures in research on primary
care management aspects included effectiveness with
regard to quality aspects/quality indicators, often with
a benchmarking approach, or efciency with regard
to costs (1019). Outcomes which reliably reect
patients health or well-being or Starelds central
components or indicators (5) were rarely used.
Many of the retrieved papers were related to the
management in primary care of patients with a specic disease (very often depression or other mental
conditions, or diabetes) or of a dened patient population, i.e. geriatric care (2024). The effect of various primary care management models or interventions,
such as outreach preventive visits or care by nurse
practitioners, was studied in different patient populations. Several studies suggest that for some well
dened conditions, quality of care provided by appropriately trained nurses is as high as care provided by
Table II. Search strategies: Community orientation.

(community networks[MeSH] OR community health services[MeSH] OR community health planning[MeSH] OR
community-institutional relations[MeSH] OR community health aides[MeSH] OR community health nursing[MeSH] OR
community health centres[MeSH] OR community medicine[MeSH] OR consumer participation[MeSH] OR delivery of health
care[MeSH]) AND (primary health care [Majr MeSH] OR family practice [MeSH] NOT public health[MeSH])
(minority groups[MeSH] AND health services needs and demand[MeSH] OR community networks/utilization) AND (primary
health care [Majr MeSH] OR family practice [MeSH])
residence characteristics[MeSH] AND (primary health care [Majr MeSH] OR family practice [MeSH])
community AND (family practice[MeSH] OR physicians, family[MeSH]) AND education[Majr MeSH]

doctors and health outcomes for patients are comparable. However, primary care by nurse practitioners
is likely to cost as much as care provided by (salaried)
GPs according to currently available data. Interventions on practice organization seem to inuence service uptake, but the effect on health outcomes was
rarely studied (25,26).
The impact of consultation length has been studied
in observational studies, but without conclusive ndings. Further trials are needed focusing on health
outcomes and cost effectiveness.
Access to primary care is differently organized
across various countries both inside and outside
Europe. Many of the retrieved papers were disease
related studies or nursing research papers. Improving
access is a key policy issue in improving quality of
(primary) care and in guaranteeing equity in health
care, but until now the topic has mostly been studied
from a local point of view rather than as a general
characteristic or in a comparative way (2732).
An important focus of research was collaborative
care and the interface between primary and secondary
care. However, this interface is organized very differently in various European countries, implying that
studies have to be interpreted in their local context
and cannot really be generalized to another setting.
Much research has been conducted with regard to
referral rates and it shows a wide variation between
individual general practitioners. Local educational
interventions actively involving GPs and secondary
care specialists, and structured referral sheets are the
only intervention shown to have an impact on referral rates based on current evidence. The effects of an
in-house second opinion and other intermediate
primary care based alternatives to outpatient referral
appear promising in settings with otherwise strict
gate-keeping by GPs (3344). Cooperation with
pharmacists (i.e. for control or coordination of prescriptions) may possibly reduce medication-related
adverse events. More randomized controlled trials
of primary care based pharmacist-led interventions
are needed, to decide on the effectiveness of this
(45).
There has been quite a lot of research on the role
and potential effects of electronic medical records
(EMR) in primary care. The use of ICPC and coding
of GPs daily practice activity based on patients reasons for encounter was a central concept of many
papers (46). These show the usefulness, potential and
possibilities for further development of primary care
epidemiology based on the electronic medical records
coded with ICPC and structured according to episodes of care (4750). However, in many European
countries medical record utilisation and quality are
less than ideal from the perspectives of primary care
epidemiology or data collection for national and
international research databases. This is caused by

either the lack of standard classications, or by
national legislation imposing use of ICD based coding.
Often, this results in incomplete records. For research
purposes, a pragmatic approach to everyday EMR or
other routine data, i.e. health insurance or billing
data used for secondary analyses, must be adopted
(51,52). There is a rapidly increasing body of literature both on methodological and quality issues of
research on EMR/routine data, and on research projects using such records as a data source, for example
eHID, QRESEARCH and other morbidity/EMR
databases in the UK, Belgium and the Netherlands
(5357). A substantial proportion of research papers
dealt with the potential of these databases to generate
data for quality management (including audits) and
of EMRs to represent a platform for implementing
guidelines or recommendations, to identify patients
eligible for treatment or preventive services, or to
prompt drug warnings. Results obtained were mostly
positive, but not overwhelmingly so, which may
depend on the EMR system used. Effectiveness with
regard to health outcomes is rarely studied.
There has been a limited amount of educational
research on primary care management aspects. Of the
studies performed, the vast majority focuses on
educational interventions aimed at doctors to implement
specic service approaches, for example, prevention
activities, inter-professional collaboration, or care
strategies for specic diseases, detection of disease,
and prescribing. Most studies showed either small or
insignicant effects; sustainability of these effects has
not been studied (5862).
Community orientation
Community orientation seems to be a rather new
competence. Several articles from recent decades
were descriptive, explanatory opinion papers. They
attempted to dene the concept of community oriented primary care and described its development
(4,6368). The English language concept of community includes both small entities such as a family,
and large communities such as a school, a city or a
country. This renders the concept difcult to study
and results in considerable overlap between public
health and primary care research.
Not unexpectedly, many narrative and descriptive
reports were retrieved. A lot of research literature was
related to nursing rather than GP/FM. There were
few research articles on community oriented primary
care (COPC), and most lacked control groups or
comparators. Research considering relevant, GP
related outcomes was missing. There were some
studies exploring health needs with a combination of
qualitative and quantitative methods, but in general


there is a lack of qualitative research. Most studies
focused on very specic issues, either care for dened
diseases (mental conditions, common chronic diseases like diabetes or arthritis), or patient/population
groups (geriatric patients, mothers and newborns,
minorities or deprived groups) or on preventive services (vaccinations, screening, smoking cessation,
dentistry) (6991). They were community or population based, but were not community orientated from
a primary care point of view. Thus, most of the current research did not really cover the concept of a
community oriented approach as described in the
European denition of GP/FM (9297).
Some articles described methods of disease management in COPC involving cooperation between
primary care and institutions in the community,
i.e. GPs referral to several community programmes,
or collaborative care (98104), or evaluated the implementation of a COPC model in local communities
(105,106). Regarding educational research, there were
several articles describing educational programmes on
community related themes, or teaching experiences
with students, but very few evaluations (107114).
The majority of studies were not controlled.
Implications
Research
Given these results, further research should focus on:
Developing research instruments and outcome
measures reecting and measuring the different
aspects of primary care management and community orientation, and their convergence;
Patient and doctors perceptions, perspectives
and preferences on practice management issues
(such as open access, telephone consultations,
telemedicine);
Comparing different models of care and evaluating effectiveness of different primary care management strategies or interventions, not only at
the level of patient satisfaction and/or service
uptake, but also on the health outcome level;
Validity and utility of electronic patient records
in a general practice; and use of information
technologies in COPC;
Routine collection and the feasibility/validity of
data from GPs electronic medical records, their
use for studies of morbidity and GP care (incl.
appropriate denominators), and as a means for
recruitment, data collection and data management in research;
Comparing different approaches/models of primary health care in the community, regarding
outcomes with respect to both individual health
and community needs (115);
Community based care models for specic areas

of clinical work (for example palliative care, drug
addiction programmes);
Effective methods of inter-professional education and teaching management skills to (future)
GPs;
Education for COPC, including the evaluation
of programmes with a clear methodology.
Research methodology
The following
formulated:
methodological
needs
can
be
Instrumental research to develop and validate

measures for practice management issues and
aspects of community orientation;
Longitudinal observational studies, i.e. on epidemiology of GP/FM, including specic aspects
and outcomes of care, and looking at both individuals and the community;
Interventional research (controlled trialscomparing different primary care management strategies, or comparing innovative strategies with
care as usual);
Implementation studies of effective strategies
(observational);
Observational cohort studies comparing different approaches and models, also on education;
Mixed design studies.
It can be concluded that much of the current
research focussed on specic diseases rather than a
generalist perspective. Outcomes are usually process
indicators or cost efciency, research with regard to
health outcomes is rare. Though there is a large body
of scientic literature on organizational aspects of
primary care, many essential topics are not or not
sufciently well studied.
Acknowledgments
The authors acknowledge the support and contribution of many organizations and persons. The full text
can be read in the rst article of this series (Eur J
Gen Pract. 2009;15:24350).

no conicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper. All
authors are members of EGPRN and active in its
committees. Additionally, EHP is member of the
WONCA Europe Executive Board. The Research
from WONCA Europe.

Electronic versions (pdf) are available from: http://
www.egprn.org. Paper versions can be requested from
the Coordinating Centre of EGPRN, Mrs Hanny
Prick. E-mail: hanny.prick@hag.unimaas.nl

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European Journal of General Practice, 2010; Early Online, 1-7
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Eur J Gen Pract Downloaded from informahealthcare.com by Medizinischen Hochschule on 05/08/10

Series: The research agenda for general practice/family medicine and

primary health care in Europe. Part 3. Results: Person centred care,
comprehensive and holistic approach
PAUL VAN ROYEN1, MARTIN BEYER2, PATRICK CHEVALLIER3, SOPHIA

EILAT-TSANANI4,5, CHRISTOS LIONIS6, LIEVE PEREMANS7,8, DAVORINA PETEK9,
IMRE RURIK10, JEAN KARL SOLER11, HENRI EJH STOFFERS12, PINAR TOPSEVER13,
MEHMET UNGAN14 & EVA HUMMERS-PRADIER15
1Department
of Primary and Interdisciplinary Care, University of Antwerp, Belgium; 2Institute for General Practice, University of
Frankfurt, Frankfurt, Germany; 3Department of General Practice, Saint-Quentin University Versailles, France; 4Department of
Family Medicine, Emek Medical Center, Faculty of Health Sciences, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel; 5Afula and the
valleys, Clalit Health Services, Northern District; 6Clinic of Social and Family Medicine, and Department of Social Medicine,
University of Crete, Crete, Greece; 7Department of Primary, Interdisciplinary University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium;
8Department of Youth Health,Vrije Universiteit of Brussels, Brussels, Belgium; 9Department of Family Medicine, Medical
School,University of Ljubljana, Slovenia; 10Department of Family Medicine, University Debrecen, Hungary; 11Mediterranean
Institute of Primary Care, Attard, Malta; 12Department of General Practice, School of Public Health and Primary Care
(CAPHRI), Maastricht University Medical Centre, Maastricht, The Netherlands; 13Department of Family Medicine, Acibadem
University,Istanbul, Turkey; 14Middle East Technical University Medical Centre, Ankara, Turkey; and 15Institute of General
Practice, Hannover Medical School, Hannover, Germany
Abstract
The recently published Research Agenda for General Practice/Family Medicine and Primary Health Care in Europe
summarizes the evidence relating to the core competencies and characteristics of the Wonca Europe definition of GP/
FM, and its implications for general practitioners/family doctors, researchers and policy makers. The European Journal
of General Practice publishes a series of articles based on this document. In a first article, background, objectives, and
methodology were discussed. In a second article, the results for the two core competencies primary care management
and community orientation were presented. This article reflects on the three core competencies, which deal with person
related aspects of GP/FM, i.e. person centred care, comprehensive approach and holistic approach. Though there is
an important body of opinion papers and (non-systematic) reviews, all person related aspects remain poorly defined and
researched. Validated instruments to measure these competencies are lacking. Concerning patient-centredness, most
research examined patient and doctor preferences and experiences. Studies on comprehensiveness mostly focus on prevention/care of specific diseases. For all domains, there has been limited research conducted on its implications or
outcomes.
Key words: General practice/family medicine, research agenda, person centred care, comprehensive approach, holistic approach
Background
Medicine and Primary Healthcare in Europe was
published in September 2009 by the European
General Practice Research Network (EGPRN)(1). It
summarizes the evidence relating to the core
competencies and characteristics of the WONCA

Europe definition of General Practice/Family Medicine (GP/FM) (2), and indicates evidence gaps and
research needs. The European Journal of General
Practice presents this document as a series of articles.
Background, objectives and methodology were
Correspondence: Paul Van Royen, Department of Primary and Interdisciplinary Care, University of AntwerpFaculty of Medicine, Universiteitsplein 1, 2610
Antwerp, Belgium. E-mail: paul.vanroyen@ua.ac.be
(Received 15 March 2010; accepted 19 March 2010)
DOI: 10.3109/13814788.2010.481018
P. Van Royen et al.
presented in part 1(3). Results on the two core competencies, which deal with organizational aspects of
GP/FM, i.e. primary care management and community orientation were presented and discussed in
part 2 (4). This article reflects on the three core competencies that deal with person related aspects of GP/
FM, i.e. person centred care, comprehensive
approach and holistic approach.
Definition of the research domains

According to the WONCA Europe definition of GP/

FM, person centred care includes the ability to
adopt a person-centred approach in dealing with
patients and problems in the context of patients
circumstances.
establish an effective doctor-patient relationship,
with respect for the patients autonomy.
communicate, set priorities and act in
partnership.
provide longitudinal continuity of care as determined by the needs of the patient, referring to continuing and co-ordinated care management (2).
The research domain also includes studies on
patients perspectives and preferences, as well as the
effectiveness of a person- or patient-centred approach
and aspects of patient involvement and shared decision making, though there is an overlap with aspects
of specific problem solving. Patient-centredness has
been accepted as an important, central value in medical care and it is nowadays universally advocated in
medical education (5).
According to the WONCA Europe definition, a
comprehensive approach includes the ability to
manage multiple complaints and pathologies
simultaneously.
promote health and well being by applying disease prevention strategies appropriately.
manage and coordinate health promotion, prevention, cure, care, palliation and rehabilitation (2).
The core competency and research domain comprehensive approach thus includes two aspects: a
focus on management of illness (managing simultaneously multiple complaints and pathologies encompassing acute as well as chronic health problems) and
another on well-being and health promotion. General practitioners have to manage and coordinate all
of these aspects in a specific long-term general practitioner-patient relationship.
This means that the comprehensive approach
research domain includes studies on health promo-
tion and prevention, diagnosis, treatment and followup of all diseases but also palliation. It necessitates
the simultaneous consideration of these different
aspects of care, and requires research not linked to
specific diseases, but to patient groups or to health
themes in all their aspects.
The research domains of person-centred care
and comprehensive approach reflect two of Starfields four central components of primary care, i.e.
longitudinality or continuity (defined as personfocused care over time) and comprehensiveness
(defined as the extent to which the healthcare provider actually recognizes all the patients needs as they
occur, and offers a range of services broad enough to
meet all common requirements) (6).
According to the WONCA Europe definition
(2), a holistic approach includes the ability to use a
biopsychosocial model that takes into account cultural and existential dimensions (7,8). The holistic
approach can be defined as caring for the whole person in the context of his values, family beliefs, family
system, culture and socio-ecological situation within
the larger community, and considering a range of
therapies based on the evidence of their benefits and
cost. The complexity phenomenon is another aspect
of a holistic approach. Individuals, organizations,
social groups and society have characteristics of complex adaptive systems (9). The more directly involved
the patient or the health care provider is in clinical
or general practice interventional research, the more
sophisticated the design of the trial has to be to take
account of the influence of the individual over the
outcome (10). Finally, ethical issues and cultural
competency are considered an important part of a
holistic approach to health and health care.
Methodology
A general description of the methodology of our
evaluationkey informant surveys, a comprehensive
literature review and expert consensuswas presented in the first part of this series (3). Literature
on patient centeredness was sought using the MeSH
termpatient-centred care, combined with continuity of patient care (MeSH), primary health care
(Majr MeSH) and/or family practice (MeSH). Literature on comprehensive approach was sought
using the MeSH terms and combinations shown in
Table I.
As the MeSH term comprehensive health care
is a very large term also including primary health care
and patient-centred care as subheadings, different
combinations on sub domains as health promotion,
prevention, palliative care and teaching were used.
For retrieval of literature on holistic approach, and
the specific aspects of complexity and cultural com-
Series: Research Agenda for GP/FM. Part 3

Table I. Search strategies: Comprehensive approach.

comprehensivehealthcare[MeSH]ANDprimarycare
[MeSH]ORfamilypractice(MeSH)
comprehensivehealthcare[Majr]AND((primaryhealth
care[TIAB]NOTMedline[SB])ORprimaryhealthcare
[MeSHTerms]ORprimarycare[TextWord])OR((family
practice[TIAB]NOTMedline[SB])ORfamilypractice
[MeSHTerms]ORfamilymedicine[TextWord])OR
((familypractice[TIAB]NOTMedline[SB])ORfamily
practice[MeSHTerms]ORgeneralpractice[TextWord])
ANDMeta-Analysis[ptyp]NOTcomprehensivedental
care[MeSH]
Health promotion
(ComprehensiveHealthCare[MeSH]ORPrimaryHealth
Care[MeSH]ORFamilyPractice[MeSH])ANDHealth
Promotion[Majr]NOTnursingLimits:meta-analysis
Prevention
(preventionandcontrol[Subheading]ORprimary
prevention[MeSH])AND(comprehensivehealthcare
[MeSH]ORprimaryhealthcare[MeSH]ORfamily
practice[MeSH])
Palliative care
comprehensivehealthcare[MeSH]ANDpalliativecare
[MeSH])AND(primaryhealthcare[MeSH]OR
physicians,family[MeSH])
Teaching
(teaching[MeSH]OReducation[MeSH]OReducation
[Subheading]ORteachingmaterials[MeSH])AND
comprehensivehealthcare[MeSH]ANDfamilypractice
[MajrMeSH]
petency, the MeSH terms and combinations were

used as shown in Table II.
Additional searches using seek related articles
options, MeSH terms of relevant articles, free text
searches or search strings not limited to family practice or primary health care were used to extend the
overview. As many retrieved articles focused on nursTable II. Search strategies: Holistic approach.
holistichealth[MajrMeSH]AND(primaryhealthcare
[MajrMeSH]ORfamilypractice[MeSH])
[MajrMeSH]ORfamilypractice[MajrMeSH]AND
healthservicesresearch[MajrMeSH])
[MajrMeSH]ANDeducation(Subheading)AND
research[MeSH]ORresearch[TextWord])
holistichealth[MajrMeSH]AND(biomedicalresearch
[MeSH]ORclinicalnursingresearch[MeSH]AND
psychology,social[MeSH]ORsociology,medical
[MeSH])ANDprimaryhealthcare[MajrMeSH]
Complexity
complexity[AllFields]AND(primaryhealthcare[Majr
MeSH]ORfamilypractice[MeSH]
Cultural competency
(culturalcompetency[MeSH]ORculture[MeSH])AND
(primaryhealthcare[MajrMeSH]ORfamilypractice
[MeSH])
ing were not relevant to family practice, these were

excluded through use of the search string NOT
nursing. Literature was reviewed and consented
conclusions were drawn according to the procedure
described in part 1 of this series (3).
Results
Person centred care
Many of the retrieved articles dealing with the concept
of patient-centredness were opinion papers, sometimes based on literature review (5). The concept
remains however poorly defined. Although some specific measures were developed, i.e. on enablement,
satisfaction, and participation, instruments to measure
the complex concept as a whole are still lacking.
Several papers studied patient and doctor experiences, beliefs and preferences of a biomedical versus a patient-centred approach in communication,
mainly using qualitative research methods (interviews, focus groups, videotapes) (11). It appears
that not every situation or each patient group in
general practice cherishes a distinctly patientcentred communication style, or shared decision
making. A better understanding of the diversity of
patient and doctor preferences in different situations may lead to more effective and individualized
care.
Other papers have explored the preferences and
experiences of patients on (interpersonal) continuity
of care. Both, patients and doctors valued continuity
in addressing serious and psychosocial issues, and for
routine checks of a chronic illness. However, continuity is considered less important than good doctorpatient communication. For acute disorders, being
able to achieve fast access to care is more important
than interpersonal continuity for many otherwise
healthy patients. Continuous care performed by the
same doctors seems to be beneficial for regular
follow-up examinations in chronic disorders and to
some extent for compliance with guidelines, i.e. for
diabetes.
The effects of a patient-centred approach or
communication have been studied with regard to
patient satisfaction and treatment adherence, improved medical outcomes and decreased malpractice
claims (12). Most studies showed effects on patient
satisfaction.
Recently, some research has been done on selfmanagement education for patients with various
chronic conditions. It appears that these programmes
are more effective than information-only patient education; small, short-term effects were recorded with
regard to increased satisfaction, health behaviour,
decreased symptoms and health care utilisation (13
P. Van Royen et al.

15). Despite this relatively weak evidence, it is believed

that the concept of patient self-activation or selfmotivation and establishing a pro-active team-patient
relationship in GP/FM will gain in importance in the
future, especially for chronic diseases (16,17).
There is limited research on the effect of training
programmes for practitioners in person-centred care
on clinical and non-clinical outcomes (18).
In conclusion, the concept of person-centredness
remains poorly defined. Most research examined
patient and doctor preferences and experiences,
whereas implications or outcomes of a patientcentred approach were hardly studied.
Comprehensive approach
Most research on medical comprehensive care is either
related to care or prevention of a specific disease,
very often mental health (depression, alcohol abuse)
(19,20) and cardiovascular disease, or to specific
activities such as disease screening or complex interventions (counselling (2123), implementation of a
chronic care model (24), lifestyle modification (25)).
Concerning prevention and comprehensive care,
there seems to be not much good research in family
practice to date. Often, the setting of studies and their
relevance for general practice are not clarified. This
gives a very scattered view with multiple fragments of
knowledge, highlighting very specific situations (often
without defining the setting of care well), but not
resulting in a good picture on comprehensiveness as
defined by Wonca.
A considerable amount of research on lifestyle
interventions for primary care patients is labelled with
the term comprehensive. Only some of these studies
are really primary care based, and more often they
were undertaken by specialists on more or less selected
samples. Meta-analyses concluded that there is no
evidence to support an effect of stages-of-change
based interventions on levels of physical activity. With
respect to quitting smoking, interventions such as
telephone counselling might positively affect behaviour (26). Some positive evidence was found regarding fat intake at short- and long-term follow-up.
Individual studies on lifestyle interventions often
claim positive effects, but these are usually small and
often described by surrogate or disease-specific outcome measures and cover only very limited aspects
of health. In conclusion, scientific evidence does not
significantly support lifestyle interventions to modify
health behaviour.
Preventive primary care outreach interventions
aimed at older people were associated with a reduction in mortality and increased likelihood of continuing to live in the community (27,28). Most studies
on palliative care, another important issue within
comprehensive care, focus on management and are

performed by nurse researchers. Good communication, meeting both the patients and the familys
needs, with aims to improve quality of life are important elements of good end of life care (2931).
Many studies related to practice management
and organization were found under the heading comprehensive and primary care (3236). However, most
fell into the domain of primary care management,
discussed in the previous paper (4).
There is limited material on medical education for
a comprehensive approach (3740). In a review of
educational interventions in primary care, the authors
concluded there were only two articles meeting the
criteria for good research in this field.
Almost all-existing research on a comprehensive
approach is either cross-sectional or prospective with
relatively short follow-up times. Sustainability and
long-term impact on relevant health outcomes are
rarely studied. There is an important lack of methodologies and outcome measures as well as longitudinal studies.
In conclusion, there is very little evidence establishing this competency as understood in the Wonca
definition. The concept of a comprehensive approach
in general practice is not well defined in terms that
are applicable for designing research, apart from the
Starfield indicator, which is, however, rarely used. We
do not know how well the concept is understood by
primary care doctors, and whether patients share this
view and recognize activities as comprehensive care.
There is almost no research on a generally comprehensive approach towards the patient irrespective of
specific medical problems.
Holistic approach
Almost all of the retrieved papers are opinion papers
or non-systematic reviews (4145). There is virtually
no investigative research. The majority of the papers
relate to nursing; a considerable number to complementary medicine, a theme that seems to be associated with a holistic approach. Few articles deal with
holistic care for various conditions, but usually the
definition does not seem to follow the Wonca Europe
concept. However, many of the reviews and opinion
papers agree that a holistic approach is important
and valuable, and that care providers and patients
hold similar views on this issue.
Daily general practice and primary care often
claim to adopt a holistic approach. From a theoretical or consensus point of view, it seems that a holistic approach, including the concept of complexity,
becomes ever more important as populations present
with more chronic diseases. To aim for a broad concept of health and well-being, their care requires both


a holistic, comprehensive and person centred view
on the patient. It has been postulated that a holistic
approach improves patients satisfaction and coping,
and probably their health, but research evidence supporting these assumptions is lacking (46).
Some aspects of a holistic approach have been
subject to research. There is a limited number of
papers studying the concept of cultural competency
in depth, as well as the influencing factors, obstacles
in practice, measurement instruments, and models
of implementation (i.e. programmes focussing on
cultural competency) (4754). Furthermore, some
papers focus on complexity, looking at barriers and
facilitators for change in healthcare as complex phenomena. Such research also shows that the metaphor
of removing barriers to change is of limited use
when studying the implementation of a certain policy
or programme. The observation and study of the
complex context and underlying social relations are
proven to be more relevant (55).
In conclusion, the concept of a holistic approach
remains poorly defined, and is very rarely a topic for
research. Both a clear definition in practical terms
and validated instruments to measure it are still lacking. There is almost no research on its implications
or outcomes.
Implications
Research
Given these results, further research in the area of
person centred care, comprehensive and holistic
approach, should focus on:
Better understanding and clearly defining the
competencies person-centredness, comprehensiveness and a holistic approach (or components
thereof).
Developing research instruments and outcome
measures for these competencies (or components thereof), taking into account their complexity and interactions.
Understanding of the social, cultural and environmental circumstances that may have an effect
on different aspects of health.
Patient and doctor perceptions, perspectives and
preferences on person-centredness, communication, involvement and shared decision making, including social, cultural and environmental
circumstances affecting these preferences.
Evaluating effectiveness and efficiency of a person-centred approach, comprehensive models of
care and a holistic approach with regard to relevant clinical health outcomes and outcome
measures such as satisfaction, knowledge, and

quality of life.
Simultaneous delivery of curative care (management and rehabilitation of illness) and preventive activities (health promotion and disease
prevention) in the same patients.
Appreciation of the comprehensive, fullrange work of GPs, and a way to reflect this
in electronic medical records and research
databases.
Effective methods of future GP training to practice a person-centred, holistic approach and the
sustainability of education effects.
Exploring what kind of need is expressed in the
approval of holistic care, and in demands for
complementary medicine.
Research methodology
For studies on the competencies person centred care,
comprehensive and holistic approach, the following
methodological needs could be formulated:
Qualitative research, to clarify the concepts of
a comprehensive or holistic approach and to
study patients and doctors concepts and
expectations.
Instrumental research, to develop measures for
patient-centredness, comprehensive and holistic
approach.
Longitudinal observational studies with retrospective and prospective designs, to assess the
effectiveness and sustainability of (specific
aspects of) a person-centred, comprehensive or
holistic approach, and the effects of training
these competencies.
Interventional studies, to assess effects of personcentred care or a holistic approach
Mixed research designs.
Frequently in lifestyle or preventive care intervention studies, usual and good general practice care
are not well described. In these studies, the expected
added value to the usual comprehensive general
practice care and its validity as a comparator should
be considered carefully.
Final comments
It can be concluded that all person related aspects
of family medicine are poorly defined. Validated
instruments to measure these competencies are lacking. Concerning patient-centredness, most research
examined patient and doctor preferences and expe-

P. Van Royen et al.
riences. For the domains of comprehensive and

holistic approach, there is a striking lack of research.
Studies on comprehensiveness mostly focus on prevention or care of specific diseases. For all domains,
there has been limited research conducted on its
implications or outcomes.
Maybe comprehensiveness is an umbrella concept, which should encompass the other five core
competencies of the WONCA definition. It is questionable if comprehensiveness as a whole can be the
focus of research. For research purposes, the concept
needs to be broken down into individual specific
approaches and aspects of comprehensiveness, which
can themselves be subjects of research.
Concerning the holistic approach, care providers
and patients across many countries seem to share a
common view, but this has not been translated into
outcome measures. However, ICPC provides the
possibility to code the social as well as psychological
problems presented or dealt with, which may be
used as a proxy for a holistic concept. There is a
dichotomy between the obvious lack of research
and evidence and the somewhat implicit consensus
about its importance as an essential element for GP/
FM. Therefore, Wonca Europe should reflect and
reconsider the concept and its status as a core competency.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
Acknowledgments
The authors acknowledge the support and contribution of many organizations and persons. The full text
can be read in the first article of this series (3).
13.
14.

no conflict of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper. All
authors are members of EGPRN and active in its
committees. Additionally, EHP is member of the
Wonca Europe Executive Board. The Research
from Wonca Europe.
15.
16.
17.

Electronic versions (pdf) are available from: http://
www.egprn.org. Paper versions can be requested
from the Coordinating Centre of EGPRN, Mrs
Hanny Prick. E-mail: hanny.prick@hag.unimaas.nl.
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The Research Agenda for General Practice/Family

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Paul Van Royen

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All in-text references underlined in blue are linked to publications on ResearchGate,

Available from: Paul Van Royen

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The Research Agenda for General Practice/Family Medicine and

EVA HUMMERS-PRADIER1, MARTIN BEYER2, PATRICK CHEVALLIER3,

The European General Practice Research Network

many European countries. It could also serve as a

(Received 30 October 2009; accepted 30 October 2009)

Agenda intends to complement the EURACT

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recently emphasized by WHO and several reviews

Eur J Gen Pract Downloaded from informahealthcare.com by Universiteit Antwerpen Bibliotheek

Table I. Aims and objectives of the Research Agenda for General

GP research as reected by several key informant

Eur J Gen Pract Downloaded from informahealthcare.com by Universiteit Antwerpen Bibliotheek

research. Literature searches were mostly limited to

Eur J Gen Pract Downloaded from informahealthcare.com by Universiteit Antwerpen Bibliotheek

Eur J Gen Pract Downloaded from informahealthcare.com by Universiteit Antwerpen Bibliotheek

acknowledged that GP/FM needs to increase its

Full text versions of the research agenda

Eur J Gen Pract Downloaded from informahealthcare.com by Universiteit Antwerpen Bibliotheek

28. McWhinney IR. General practice as an academic discipline:

Eur J Gen Pract Downloaded from informahealthcare.com by Universiteit Antwerpen Bibliotheek

54. Furler J, Cleland J, Del Mar C, Hanratty B, Kadam U,

Proceeding from WONCA 2007. Fam Pract 2008;25:

European Journal of General Practice, 2010; Early Online: 19

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Series: The research agenda for general practice/family medicine

EVA. HUMMERS-PRADIER1, MARTIN BEYER2, PATRICK CHEVALLIER3,

on: Hummers-Pradier E, et al. Research Agenda for General

The Research Agenda for General Practice/Family

(Received 13 December 2009; accepted 16 December 2009)

Eur J Gen Pract Downloaded from informahealthcare.com by Medizinischen Hochschule

General Practice Research Network (EGPRN) (1).

Series; Research Agenda for GP/FM. Part 2

Table I. Search strategies: Primary care management.

Eur J Gen Pract Downloaded from informahealthcare.com by Medizinischen Hochschule

Methodologyoverview of search strategies

Table II. Search strategies: Community orientation.

Eur J Gen Pract Downloaded from informahealthcare.com by Medizinischen Hochschule

international research databases. This is caused by

Eur J Gen Pract Downloaded from informahealthcare.com by Medizinischen Hochschule

Series; Research Agenda for GP/FM. Part 2

Community based care models for specic areas

Instrumental research to develop and validate

Declaration of interest: The authors report having

Full text versions of the research agenda

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16. Richards SH, Bankhead C, Peters TJ, Austoker J, Hobbs FD,

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Series; Research Agenda for GP/FM. Part 2

48. Okkes IM, Polderman GO, Fryer GE, Yamada T, Bujak M,

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67. Longlett SK, Kruse JE, Wesleuy RM. Community-oriented

83. Hopton JL, Dlugolecka M. Need and demand for primary