About us

Research in General Practice is done with a focus on the primary care perspective, which means that there are differences compared to research in hospital-based care. Under the umbrella of General Practice are included aspects of health throughout life, as well as the preventative, treating, and evaluative perspectives of disease. This makes research in General Practice an important complement. The academic subject General Practice (as opposed to the medical specialisation which shares the name) involves all categories of health professionals that work in primary care.

We do research on a large number of health conditions, and apply quantitative as well as qualitative research methodology. Beyond clinical studies we also work with register studies, which are based on data from electronic medical records (EMR) linked to other registers of research data. The group cooperates with other research groups active in primary care research in Region Gävleborg, Region Dalarna, and Region Sörmland. This inter-regional cooperation is important in order to cover a wider range of primary care perspectives. Additionally, our group consists of researchers from many different health care professions who focus on varied fields of research, which gives the right conditions to study the complex relations found in General Practice research.

We teach medical students in semesters 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 8, and 11, and have overarching responsibility for semester 11. We have a seat at the Programme Board and Programme Committee for the medical program. We take part in the General Practice component of examinations of foreign-educated doctors. We provide doctoral students as well as a member of the reference group to the National Research School in General Practice.

The National Research School in General Practice

Together with Nära vård och hälsa (NVH), Region Uppsala we make up a University Healthcare Unit. In this cooperation we are responsible for how the allocated national research funds for clinical research (ALF) are allocated within primary care research. We are also active participants in NVH's work to strengthen primary care research in the region. We teach and supervise future doctor specialists in General Practice in matters of scientific research.

Nationally we also work to reinforce General Practice research through work in the organisation Samling för Allmänmedicinsk Forskning och Utbildning (SAFU), a network of all Swedish university units which are involved in the subject General Practice. Through SAFU we hold continuous talks with ministries, government agencies, and national scientific funders in order to improve General Practice research. SAFU is also involved in developing the national teaching guidelines for the General Practice part of the national medical program.

Samling för Allmänmedicinsk Forskning och Utbildning (SAFU) (in Swedish).