Why the study?
Perioperative optimisation improves surgical outcomes for older people, and primary care integration could improve quality and reduce access variability, but general practitioner perspectives and barriers remained uncharacterised.
What are the attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors of general practitioners regarding perioperative medicine for older people?
What are the attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors of general practitioners regarding perioperative medicine for older people?
General practitioners recognize the value of perioperative optimization for older surgical patients and their role in it, but require better interprofessional education and cross-sector collaboration to overcome existing barriers.
GPs endorse perioperative optimization roles despite barriers; supports targeted education but leaves clinical impact unproven.
BACKGROUND: Perioperative optimisation can improve outcomes for older people having surgery. Integration with primary care could improve quality and reduce variability in access to preoperative optimisation. AIM: Our aim was to explore attitudes, beliefs and behaviours of general practitioners (GPs) regarding the perioperative pathway, and evaluate enablers and barriers to GP-led preoperative optimisation. METHODS: Stakeholder interviews (n=38) informed survey development. A purposive sampling frame was used to target delivery of online and paper surveys. Results were analysed using descriptive statistics. RESULTS: We had 231 responses (response rate 32.7%). Enablers included belief among GPs that optimisation improves postoperative outcomes (86%) and that they have a role discussing modifiable risk factors with patients (85%). Barriers included low frequency exposure to older surgical patients, minimal training in perioperative medicine and rare interaction with perioperative services. CONCLUSION: This survey illustrates the importance of interprofessional education, cross-sector training opportunities and collaboration to deliver integrated preoperative optimisation for older people undergoing surgery.
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O’Halloran et al. (2021) studied this question.
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