Objective: To clarify administrators' awareness of outpatient cancer nursing clinics.

Methods: We conducted semi-structured interviews of six administrators overseeing outpatient cancer nursing clinics and performed a qualitative, inductive analysis.

Results and discussion: In this study, interviews with the administrators led to the identification of ten categories for outpatient cancer nursing clinics such as [the nurses' role in easing the concerns and worries of patients with cancer and their families], [challenges in training and securing outpatient cancer nursing clinic personnel], and [the influence of the passion and confidence of nurses on practice in outpatient cancer nursing clinics]. These interviews revealed that, in practice, outpatient cancer nursing is a useful skill for elucidating the real needs of patients and supporting their decision-making. Coordinated efforts and collaboration among human resources/disciplines may affect day-to-day outpatient cancer nursing clinics.

Conclusion: This study revealed that the development of assessment indices to substantiate the accomplishment of outpatient cancer nursing clinics and the training of personnel with a high level of practical skills are two challenges for the expansion of outpatient cancer nursing clinics.

Introduction: Optimization of after-hours visits to medical institutions is one of the major problems in medical systems. The purpose of this study was to clarify the effects of the distribution of booklets about after-hours common symptom management to all residents on the number of after-hour consultations.

Method: The Tadami town government distributed booklets to all town residents in July 2011. We analyzed the number of after-hours consultations per month at Tadami National Health Insurance Asahi Clinic, which is the only medical institution in the town, from January 2010 to December 2012. We employed an interrupted time series analysis.

Result: The number of included after-hours consultations during the study period was 2,399. The baseline trend was 0.0071 (95% confidence interval −0.011, 0.025), and the slope change from the baseline trend was −0.0061 (−0.034, 0.022).

Conclusion: On comparison of before and after the distribution of a booklet about after-hours common symptom management to all residents in the town, the number of after-hours consultations did not change significantly.

Objective: Smoking cessation treatment, which is now covered by insurance, is usually provided on an outpatient basis for approximately 3 months. It should ideally be evaluated not only by the rate of smoking cessation at the end of the treatment, but also by the length of the continuation of smoking cessation. However, as it is difficult to conduct long-term follow-up after the end of smoking cessation treatment, few studies have followed up successful cases of short-term smoking cessation for a long period in Japan.

Methods: In this study, we examined the behaviors of nicotine-addicted patients who consulted our smoking cessation clinic, and investigated the current situation of long-term smoking cessation and involved factors.

Results: The rate of smoking cessation at the end of the treatment was 71.8%. We found that 61.1%, 54.0%, and 50.6% of patients successfully quit smoking after the end of treatment for one, 2, and 3 years, respectively. However, 41.1% of male patients who succeeded restarted smoking within 6 months after the end of treatment.

Conclusion: Additional support for patients who successfully quit smoking at an early stage at one year, or 6 months for males, is required to encourage them to continue to cease smoking.

In the 1980s, some researchers started using the word "multimorbidity", which is defined as "the co-existence of two or more long-term conditions in an individual". Multimorbidity has become one of the most important topics in recent primary care because of its clinical significance. Multimorbidity is more common among the elderly, and was suggested to be associated with female sex, lower socio-economic status and mental disease. Multimorbidity is associated with a higher mortality, lower quality of life and reduced functional status. It is also associated with the treatment burden such as consultation frequency, fragmented healthcare provision and inadequate polypharmacy. Multimorbidity has negative impact on health care resource use such as hospital visits, unexpected admission and total health care costs. However, the total picture and health care effects of multimorbidity have only been reported in observational studies, and there is little evidence of which interventions are effective for multimorbidity patients. In this review paper, we carried out a literature review of high-quality reports from Japan and overseas. We provide an overview of the current situation of multimorbidity research and highlight the research gaps. Based on these results, we would like to propose approaches for multimorbidity patients in clinical settings.

We, a group of four delegates from Japan, participated in the fifth Japan-UK Primary Care Exchange Programme and visited the UK in October of 2018. This report highlights some differences between the UK and Japanese healthcare systems, such as working conditions for GPs and requirements for GP trainers, and what the Japan Primary Care Association can learn from them. We propose that the Japan Primary Care Association create opportunities to discuss and exchange views with other healthcare professionals, strengthen training programs for future GP trainers and define competencies for GP trainers in Japan.