Diabetes paper wins RCGP Research Paper of the Year Category award

 A team of researchers led by Jackie Sturt, Professor of Behavioural Medicine are co-authors of a publication that has won the RCGP Research Paper of the Year Category award for their study on diabetes.

The team from King’s, University of Birmingham, Warwick Medical School and Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust published their study, ‘Influence of primary care practices on patients’ uptake of diabetic retinopathy screening: a qualitative case study’, which will be presented at the RCGP’s annual conference today.

The Royal College of General Practitioners award recognises an individual or group of researchers who have undertaken and published an exceptional piece of research relating to general practice or primary care.

Professor Sturt said: “It is a great honour for the FLURRI team to have our work recognised by the RCGP this year. Diabetic retinopathy is a serious complication of type 1 and type 2 diabetes and our research paper highlights the importance of multidisciplinary clinical practice in primary care. Multi-disciplinary working was found to encourage people to attend for screening so that early detection of changes in the retina can result in effective treatment and disease progression being arrested. This award gives diabetic retinopathy prominence in primary care diabetes clinical practice and hopefully our findings will lead to the prevention of vision loss in people with diabetes.”

The NHS Diabetic Eye Screening Programme aims to reduce the risk of sight loss among people with diabetes in England by allowing quick diagnosis of sight-threatening retinopathy. However, the rate of screening uptake between practices can vary from 55% to 95%. The paper looked at the factors contributing to high or low patient uptake of retinopathy screening and found a number of issues affecting uptake including service and staff interaction and perception of non-attenders. The paper recommended a range of service-level opportunities to improve screening attendance and more research.

The paper was published in the British Journal of General Practice in August 2014.

Notes to Editors:

1. Category 6: Endocrinology (inc Diabetes), Gastroenterology, Musculoskeletal & Trauma, and Dermatology

2. FLURRI study: Factors affecting Low Uptake of diabetic Retinapathy scReening in prImary care.

3. Submissions were published between 1 January and 31 December 2014. For more information about the award, please visit RCGP’s website.