Is identification of smoking, risky XXXX consumption and overweight and @entity28 by General Practitioner's improving? A comparison over time.

@entity1 @entity285 @entity28
BACKGROUND: Detection of lifestyle risk factors by GPs is the first step required for intervention. Despite significant investment in preventive health care in general practice, little is known about whether GP detection of lifestyle risk factors have improved over time. OBJECTIVES: To examine whether sensitivity and specificity of GP detection of smoking, risky @entity285 consumption and overweight and @entity28 has increased in @entity1 presenting to see their GP, by comparing results from four Australian studies conducted between 1982 and 2011. METHODS: Demographic characteristics of @entity1 and GP samples and the prevalence, sensitivity and specificity of detection of each risk factor were extracted from published studies. Differences between GP and @entity1 sample characteristics were examined. To identify trends over time in prevalence of risk factors, sensitivity and specificity of detection across studies and the Cochran-Armitage test for trend were calculated for each risk factor for the overall sample and by male and female subgroups. RESULTS: There were no statistically significant changes in the sensitivity of GP detection of smoking or overweight or @entity28 over time. Specificity of detection of smoking increased from 64.7% to 98% (P < 0.0001) and decreased for overweight or @entity28 from 92% to 89% (P = 0.01). There was a small decrease in the sensitivity of detection of @entity285 consumption (P = 0.02) and an increase in specificity (P = 0.01). CONCLUSIONS: Despite significant investment to increase GP detection and intervention for lifestyle risk factors, accurate detection of smoking, risky @entity285 consumption and overweight and @entity28 occurs for less than two-thirds of all @entity1 .
