December issue of Australian Journal of General Practice now available

The December issue of the Australian Journal of General Practice (AJGP) focuses on prevention, highlighting opportunities in general practice.
 
Focus
Preventing alcohol-related harm in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities: The experience of an Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Service in Central Australia
Alcohol-related harm is a significant health and social issue for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. Primary healthcare can play a part in preventing these harms.
John Boffa, Edward Tilton, Donna Ah Chee  
 
Primary care prevention of the cardiovascular health crisis for people with severe mental illnesses: The elephant in the room
The aim of this paper is to provide summative evidence of some of the known effective interventions that may reduce cardiovascular risk in people living with severe mental illness.
Victoria J Palmer, Matthew Lewis, Vasilios Stylianopolous, John Furler  
 
Chemoprevention: A new concept for cancer prevention in primary care
On the basis of meta-analyses of large prevention trials, a new paradigm in primary prevention – chemoprevention – is beginning to enter the realms of primary care for specific populations.
Jon D Emery, Peter Nguyen, Jesse Minshall, Kara-Lynne Cummings, Jennifer Walker  
 
Risk-taking behaviour in adolescents
The aim of this paper is to provide an update on risk-taking behaviours in adolescence and highlight tips for re-orienting general practice towards youth-friendly preventive care for adolescents.
Lena Sanci, Marianne Webb, Jane Hocking  
 
Preventing heat-related disease in general practice
The aim of this article is to introduce GPs to heat-related morbidity and mortality, present a model to help guide thinking about prevention of heat‑related disease, and provide examples of actions that practices and practitioners can take.
Peter W Tait, Sujata Allan, Anthea L Katelaris  
 
Quantifying the benefits and harms of various preventive health activities
The aim of this article is to illustrate how it might be possible to quantify the mortality benefit for cancer screening, quitting smoking, losing weight and treating lipids, which are preventive activities from the Red Book.
Ben Ewald, Chris Del Mar, Tammy Hoffmann  
 
Editorial
Preventive healthcare: A core component of Australian general practice
Prevention as a key aspect of healthcare is probably as old as history.
Stephen A Margolis
 
Clinical
A young man with progressive worsening dyspnoea
A man aged 35 years with a 14-pack year history of smoking presented to his GP with a 12-month history of progressive dyspnoea.
Sahan P Semasinghe Bandaralage, Krishna Bajee Sriram  
 
Colorectal cancer screening in Australia: An update
The aim of this paper is to summarise the National Health and Medical Research Council recommendations pertaining to screening so that they may be applied in general practice.
Cameron J Parkin, Stephen W Bell, Naseem Mirbagheri
 
Black salve in a nutshell
Black salve is an alternative therapy increasingly chosen by patients to self-manage their skin lesions.
Andrew Croaker, Alvin Lim, Cliff Rosendahl  
 
Research
Could an online or digital aid facilitate discussions about sexual health with older Australians in general practice?
Older patients want to discuss sexual health with GPs but feel uncomfortable doing so, as do their GPs.
Sue Malta, Meredith Temple-Smith, Jesse Hunter, Declan McGavin, Jenni Lyne, Adrian Bickerstaffe, Jane Hocking  
 
Professional
Critical caveats in using product information/pregnancy categories for pregnant or breastfeeding patients
The aim of this paper is to inform healthcare professionals of the evidence-based resources available to assist decision making when treating pregnant or breastfeeding women.
Majella Hill  
 
Evidence-based medicine from a social science perspective
This paper reviews the social science literature related to evidence-based medicine and attempts to draw some conclusions for its future improvement.
Hallam Stevens  
 
AJGP peer reviewers 2018
AJGP uses a double-blind peer review process. Reviewers provide critical commentary on the scientific quality of material submitted for publication and its interest and relevance to general practice.
 
Clinical challenge
December clinical challenge
The clinical challenge is based on this month’s Focus articles. The activity has been endorsed by the RACGP Quality Improvement and Continuing Professional Development (QI&CPD) program and has been allocated four Category 2 points (Activity ID: 147451). To complete this activity, go to gplearning and log in with the username and password you use to log in to the RACGP website.
 

AJGP Australian Journal of General Practice