Studies of the symptom dyspnoea: A systematic review

Background: To deal with patients suffering from dyspnoea, it is crucial for general practitioners to know the prevalences of different diseases causing dyspnoea in the respective area and season, the likelihood of avoidable life-threatening conditions and of worsening or recovery from disease.AimAim of our project was to conduct a systematic review of symptom-evaluating studies on the prevalence, aetiology, and prognosis of dyspnoea as presented to GPs in a primary care setting. Methods: We did a systematic review of symptom-evaluating studies on dyspnoea in primary care. For this we included all studies investigating the complaint “dyspnoea” as a primary or secondary consulting reason in general practice. Apart from qualitative studies, all kind of study designs independent from type of data assessment, outcome measurement or study quality were included. Symptom-evaluating studies from other settings than primary care and studies which exclusively included children (age
Source: BMC Family Practice - Category: Primary Care Authors: Source Type: research