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Dr Clare Goyder, Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences, University of Oxford
Dr Clare Goyder, Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences, University of Oxford

Diagnostic Error in Primary Care

It is becoming increasingly recognised that diagnostic error is an important research priority, indeed it has been described as the next frontier for patient safety.

A recent project focusing on diagnostic error in primary care has won the best abstract prize for the South West Society for Academic Primary Care Conference and will be presented at the plenary session on Friday 7th March 2014 by Dr Clare Goyder.

The presentation will include a summary of previous work that has examined the clinical reasoning process in primary care. Dr Goyder will begin by describing the diagnostic strategies used by GPs in routine consultations. She will then introduce a model developed by the late John Balla to integrate the process of diagnosis in primary care onto the framework of the Dual Theory of Cognition as developed by Daniel Kahneman  and describe 3 qualitative projects that have allowed this model to be refined and tested in different settings.

The recent project is a secondary analysis of qualitative data which was conducted using 2 existing data sets. In total, 36 interviews were coded and analysed thematically, with the aim to identify what advice experienced GPs can offer junior trainees to reduce diagnostic error and we will discuss our findings in relation to the literature.

This work is dedicated to Professor John Balla (1934 - 2013).  It was his energy and intellect that has driven this research. The idea for this recent project was his and he conducted all the original interviews.