Search 1 - Create a Register of All Adult Patients Aged 18-70 Years Who Have Been Prescribed

The SPIRO-GP Study

The SPIRO-GP study is funded by the National Health & Medical Research Council. It aims to trial spirometry as an intervention for management of asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) in a General Practice setting.

Instructions for practice staff /general practitioners:

Searching databases to identify study patients

Using Genie

Search 1 - create a register of all adult patients aged 18-70 years who have been prescribed an asthma/COPD medication in the past 6 months, seen by any doctor.

Go into Open>Patients (you will find Open in the menu bar at the top of the page) and cancel out of the small search box.

Go to Records>Search. (You will find Records in the menu bar at the top of the page)

From the list of Available Fields on the left scroll down and select Age, then select is greater than or equal to from the Comparisons and type 18 in the Value. Then click Add Line. From the list of Available Fields on the left select Age again (you need to click on it a second time for the query to work), then select is less than or equal to from the Comparisons and type 70 in the Value. Then click Query in Selection.

The patients who are between 18 and 70 will then be displayed in the Patients window.
Then click on the magnifying glass icon with the Rx (third in from the right in the menu bar at the top of the page). This allows you to search on Prescription.
In the window that opens, put the radio button in class. You will then be prompted to enter a brand name for a drug. Enter a drug that fits into the class you want; that is, Antiasthmatic And/Or Copd Preparations. It will then show you the class list, allowing you to select the class of drug you want to search for.

Click on the tick box “search current selection only“
You can then enter the date 6 months ago, to restrict to scripts printed after this date, and click OK.
The patients who are between 18 and 70 and have been prescribed a drug of this class in the past 6 months will then be displayed in the Patients window.

You may need to do a couple of searches to cover all of the medications prescribed to patients with COPD/asthma to find all of your patients.

Search 2 - Create a register of all adult patients aged 8-17 years who have been prescribed an asthma/COPD medication in the past 6 months, seen by any doctor (The COPD preparations are largely irrelevant for this age group, but this search includes the necessary antiasthmatic agents)

Go into Open>Patients (You will find Open in the menu bar at the top of the page) and cancel out of the small search box.

Go to Records>Search. (You will find Records in the menu bar at the top of the page)

From the list of Available Fields on the left scroll down and select Age, then select is greater than or equal to from the Comparisons and type 8 in the Value. Then click Add Line. From the list of Available Fields on the left select Age again (you need to click on it a second time for the query to work), then select is less than or equal to from the Comparisons and type 17 in the Value. Then click Query in Selection.

The patients who are between 8 and 17 will then be displayed in the Patients window.
Then click on the magnifying glass icon with the Rx (third in from the right in the menu bar at the top of the page). This allows you to search on Prescription.
In the window that opens, put the radio button in class. You will then be prompted to enter a brand name for a drug. Enter a drug that fits into the class you want; that is, Antiasthmatic And/Or Copd Preparations. It will then show you the class list, allowing you to select the class of drug you want to search for.

Click on the tick box “search current selection only“
You can then enter the date 6 months ago, to restrict to scripts printed after this date, and click OK.
The patients who are between 18 and 70 and have been prescribed a drug of this class in the past 6 months will then be displayed in the Patients window.

You may need to do a couple of searches to cover all of the medications prescribed to patients with COPD/asthma to find all of your patients.