ArticleBMC health services research2023
Primary care practitioners' priorities for improving the timeliness of cancer diagnosis in primary care: a European cluster-based analysis.
Article in BMC health services research, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
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.
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.
Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed, 4 citations in OpenAlex.
- Primary healthcare providers' strategies of handling patients presenting with potential cancer symptoms following the introduction of standardized cancer patient pathways in Sweden.BMC primary care · 2026Article
- Diagnostic pathways for lung cancer patients in Denmark: General practice events, first referral and stage at diagnosis.Acta oncologica (Stockholm, Sweden) · 2026Article
- Article
- Influence of Primary Care Physicians on End-of-Life Treatment Choices in Lung Cancer Diagnosed in the Emergency Department.Journal of personalized medicine · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors at 4 institutions in 5 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundDiagnosing cancer at an early stage increases the likelihood of survival, and more advanced cancers are more difficult to treat successfully. Primary care practitioners (PCPs) play a key role in timely diagnosis of cancer. PCPs' knowledge of their own patient populations and health systems could help improve the planning of more effective approaches to earlier cancer recognition and referral. How PCPs act when faced with patients who may have cancer is likely to depend on how their health systems are organised, and this may be one explanation for the wide variation on cancer survival rates across Europe.
objectivesTo identify and characterise clusters of countries whose PCPs perceive the same factors as being important in improving the timeliness of cancer diagnosis.
methodsA cluster analysis of qualitative data from an online survey was carried out. PCPs answered an open-ended survey question on how the speed of diagnosis of cancer in primary care could be improved. Following coding and thematic analysis, we identified the number of times per country that an item in a theme was mentioned. k-means clustering identified clusters of countries whose PCPs perceived the same themes as most important. Post-hoc testing explored differences between these clusters.
settingTwenty-five primary care centres in 20 European countries. Each centre was asked to recruit at least 50 participants.
participantsPrimary care practitioners of each country.
resultsIn all, 1,351 PCPs gave free-text answers. We identified eighteen themes organising the content of the responses. Based on the frequency of the themes, k-means clustering identified three groups of countries. There were significant differences between clusters regarding the importance of: access to tests (p = 0.010); access to specialists (p = 0.014), screening (p < 0.001); and finances, quotas & limits (p < 0.001).
conclusionsOur study identified three distinct clusters of European countries within which PCPs had similar views on the factors that would improve the timeliness of cancer diagnosis. Further work is needed to understand what it is about the clusters that have produced these patterns, allowing healthcare systems to share best practice and to reduce disparities.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
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.