July 2024

Australian general practitioners’ perspectives on the assessment of crying issues and fussing in infants

Naomi Kilov, Lena Sanci
 

Department of General Practice and Primary Care, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Vic

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Background and objectives

Infantile colic is one of the most common presentations to general practice in the neonatal period. It results in significant carer distress and healthcare service use. This project is the first to explore the approach of Australian general practitioners (GPs) in managing cry-fuss behaviour.

Methods

Semi-structured interviews with GPs were completed over a 30- to 60-minute period. GPs were purposively sampled to obtain diverse demographic characteristics. Interviews were transcribed and NVivo software was utilised to identify themes within the data.

Results

This project is ongoing at the time of abstract submission. Themes that are emerging include the confidence level of the GP, factors affecting confidence and threshold for the prescription of acid-suppressing medication and referral.

Discussion

The results will identify resource-depleted areas of practice (eg experience, teaching and guidelines). As such, focused intervention such as education, guidelines or clinical pathways can be implemented to support GPs with this challenging presentation.