The 99th Meeting of the European General Practice Research Network (EGPRN) was held 17-20 October in Budapest #EGPRNbudapest. The most important feature of this very productive meeting was the celebration of the 50th anniversary of EGPRN founded in November 1974. The first meeting was in London. EGPRN is proud to be a half-century old organization.
The theme of this meeting was "Mental Health Promotion and Prevention: Adjusting to the Changing World". Regarding the theme the conference emphasized on the following key areas:
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Impact of the Pandemic on Mental Health
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Innovative Strategies for Mental Health Support
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Building Resilience and Coping Mechanisms
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Addressing Mental Health Disparities
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Supporting Frontline Workers and Healthcare Professionals
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Policy Implications and Future Directions
Four pre-conference workshops were held before the conference. These were Writing for Publication – Meet the Editors for Tips and Tricks, The Principles of Qualitative Research, ‘How to read a paper: critical appraisal skills for randomised controlled trials papers’ and Balint Group – a method for improving doctors’ mental health. The meeting hosted 237 registered participants from whom there were 90 Blue dots, participants who attended the meeting for the first time. It’s a tradition within EGPRN that they got a warm welcome with a special coffee break (‘the Blue dot coffee’) and a meeting with senior researchers.
The international keynote speaker was Prof. Philip Wilson, Department of Family Medicine, University of Copenhagen (Denmark). He gave a lecture on mental health promotion with a brief overview of the mechanisms by which in-utero factors and exposures in early life can influence brain development and thereby later mental and physical health.
On the second day of the meeting the national keynote speaker was Prof. György Purebl, Head of Institute of Behavioural Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, Semmelweis University, Budapest (Hungary). He talked about Low-intensity Psychological Interventions in Primary Care. In everyday medical practice, there are many situations that require some form of psychological support. Patients have chronic diseases and medical conditions accompanied by psychological symptoms (most often anxiety, mood symptoms, irrational attitudes to therapy), which can have a decisive influence on treatment compliance and outcome and, if left untreated, can lead to mental disorders (e.g. depression, acute stress disorder, etc.).
The highlight of this conference was the meet and greet with former chairpersons. In two panels they give insight in the evolution of EGPRN and highlighted the landmarks through the era of 50 years namely the development of the research agenda, the start of the collaborative studies, the unique way of presenting posters. We shared a lot of experiences about how EGPRN was founded, how it went through those processes, their experiences, excitement, contributions to the primary care research network, experiences in the countries where each meeting was held, and how EGPRN reached its current state. The audience enjoyed the warm atmosphere with humor but also the professionalism of the key persons.
Lots of research papers are discussed in the form of theme paper, parallel sessions, one slide five-minute presentations and poster sessions. The poster session also attracted a lot of attention and the poster prize is won by Ábel Perjés and his colleagues with a poster: A novel approach in telemedicine – bringing hybrid, contact- and telemedicine-based mobile healthcare services in rural Hungarian areas.
Friday evening participants had the opportunity to visit primary care practices from their Hungarian colleagues where they had an interesting discussion about the organization of the Hungarian health care system and medical education and the workload in practices.
Not only in scientific terms, but also the unforgettable evening cruise on the Danube River allowed us to witness a magnificent culture. With these high emotions, our next goal is to celebrate the 100th Congress in Gothenburg (Sweden) with the theme “Telehealth. Its benefits, quality and safety” #EGPRNgothenburg from May 8th until May 11th, 2025. You are welcome!