Evidence map›Paper›PMID 34489251›Full record

ArticleThe British journal of general practice : the journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners2021

Factors affecting the documentation of spoken safety-netting advice in routine GP consultations: a cross-sectional study.

Peter J Edwards, Ian Bennett-Britton, Matthew J Ridd, Matthew Booker, Rebecca K Barnes

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in The British journal of general practice : the journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 14 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
14citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

14 citing papers in PubMed.

  1. Safety-netting communication during telephone consultations: an observational study using recorded consultations.The British journal of general practice : the journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners · 2026
    Observational
  2. Review
  3. Safety-netting advice documentation in out-of-hours primary care: a retrospective cohort from 2013 to 2020.The British journal of general practice : the journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners · 2025
    Article
  4. Article
  5. Article
  6. Review
  7. Article
  8. Article
  9. Article
  10. Article
  11. Research Paper of the Year 2021: relevant to training and beyond.The British journal of general practice : the journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners · 2022
    Article
  12. Review
  13. Article
  14. Safety netting in the COVID-19 Clinical Assessment Service.The British journal of general practice : the journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners · 2021
    Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

5 authors.

Peter J EdwardsCentre for Academic Primary Care, Bristol Medical School, University of Bristol, Bristol.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6999-753X
Ian Bennett-BrittonCentre for Academic Primary Care, Bristol Medical School, University of Bristol, Bristol.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5634-2665
Matthew J RiddCentre for Academic Primary Care, Bristol Medical School, University of Bristol, Bristol.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7954-8823
Matthew BookerCentre for Academic Primary Care, Bristol Medical School, University of Bristol, Bristol.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6680-9887
Rebecca K BarnesCentre for Academic Primary Care, Bristol Medical School, University of Bristol, Bristol; senior qualitative researcher, Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences, University of Oxford, Oxford.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8844-7496

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

backgroundPrevious studies have reported how often safety-netting is documented in medical records, but it is not known how this compares with what is verbalised and what factors might influence the consistency of documentation.

aimTo compare spoken and documented safety-netting advice and to explore factors associated with documentation. DESIGN AND

settingA cross-sectional study, using an existing GP consultations archive.

methodObservational coding involving classifying and quantifying medical record entries and comparison with spoken safety-netting advice in 295 video-/audio-recorded consultations. Associations were tested using logistic regression.

resultsTwo-thirds of consultations (192/295) contained spoken safety-netting advice that applied to less than half of the problems assessed (242/516). Only one-third of consultations (94/295) had documented safety-netting advice, which covered 20.3% of problems (105/516). The practice of GPs varied widely, from those that did not document their safety-netting advice to those that nearly always did so (86.7%). GPs were more likely to document their safety-netting advice for new problems (

conclusionGPs frequently do not document the safety-netting advice they have given to patients, which may have medicolegal implications in the event of an untoward incident. GPs should consider how safely they can assess and document more than one problem in a single consultation and this risk should be shared with patients to help manage expectations.

Indexed as

DocumentationReferral and ConsultationCross-Sectional StudiesHumanshealth communicationmedical recordsmedicolegalpatient safetyprimary caresafety-netting

Identifiers

PMID34489251
PMCPMC8436774

What OpenQuestion holds

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Registered trials

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.