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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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| A survey of attitudes and knowledge of geriatricians to driving in elderly patients | | Author(s) | Neil D Gillespie, Marion E T McMurdo |
| Journal title | Age and Ageing, vol 28, no 1, January 1999 |
| Pages | pp 53-58 |
| Keywords | Driving capability ; Evaluation ; Attitudes to the old of general public ; Geriatricians ; Social surveys. |
| Annotation | The 709 consultant geriatricians of the British Geriatrics Society (BGS) were sent a questionnaire with five case histories for interpretation. There was a 59% response rate. 275 respondents (68%) correctly realised that a person aged 70 had a duty to inform the Driving and Vehicle Licensing Authority (DVLA) about their eligibility to drive. The remainder did not. Most (75%) believed that the overall responsibility for informing the DVLA was with the patient. If a patient was incapable of understanding advice on driving because of advanced dementia, 83% would breach patient confidentiality and inform the authority directly. When a patient was fully capable of understanding medical advice, but ignored it, 72% of geriatricians would have legitimately breached patient confidentiality and informed DVLA. Most geriatricians (88%) saw their main role as one of providing advice on driving to patients and their families. Enforcing DVLA regulations was not seen as an appropriate function, unless patients were a danger to themselves or other drivers. Better education of geriatricians should improve awareness of when older drivers can safely continue to drive. (RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-990427223 A |
| Classmark | OPF: 4C: TOB: QT4: 3F |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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