F1 and F2 - Foundation year 1 (F1) and Foundation year 2 (F2) make up the two-year Foundation Programme which all UK medical graduates are required to undertake before progressing to specialty or GP training.
FAIRS – events which involve a number of organisations coming together on one day to provide a variety of small sessions, often repeated to allow delegates a choice
FALSE NEGATIVE A negative test result in a person who has a condition which the test is designed to detect. The person is thus mistakenly labelled as unaffected, when in fact he/she is affected. See also SCREENING, SENSITIVITY, SPECIFICITY.
FALSE POSITIVE A positive test result in a person who does not have a condition which the test is designed to detect. Thus the person is mistakenly labelled as having the condition when he/she is actually unaffected. See also SCREENING, SENSITIVITY, SPECIFICITY.
FAMILY A group of individuals related to a person by blood, legal agreement, and/or social obligation.
FAMILY DOCTOR (Syn: family practitioner) See FAMILY PHYSICIAN.
FAMILY PHYSICIAN (Syn: general practitioner, family practitioner, family doctor) A physician who provides and co-ordinates personal, primary, and continuing comprehensive health care to individuals and families. He/she provides care for both sexes of all ages, for physical, behavioural, and social problems. See JOB DESCRIPTION.
FAMILY, EXTENDED A family group consisting of members beyond the nuclear family. See FAMILY, NUCLEAR.
FAMILY, NUCLEAR A family of one or at the most two generations, usually husband, wife and children, united through blood, marriage, adoption or equivalent ties. See FAMILY EXTENDED.
FANATIC, someone who triples the effort after they lose sight of the goal
FATALITY RATE The number of deaths from a health problem recorded during a defined period, divided by the total number of cases with that health problem during the same period (incidence). This is usually expressed as the rate per 100 cases per year.
FBA Fellowship of the RCGP by assessment. An assessment of the highest standards performance of a member of the RCGP. Assesses all the major aspects of general practice through peer review. Success makes a candidate eligible for fellowship of the RCGP
FEASIBILITY STUDY A preliminary study to determine the practicability of the study or health programme, before the actual study or health programme is started. See also PILOT STUDY.
FEE FOR SERVICE (Syn: remuneration) A fee for each service or patient encounter provided. Reimbursement may be from the patient and/or a third party.
FLYERS – promotional material providing a short summary of the service advertising dissemination activities, often requests the receiver to respond for further information
FOCUS GROUPS – a group of individuals brought together to focus on a specific area of work or activity. May involve process mapping, brainstorming and problem solving. It is a semi structured meetings to discuss a common issue
FOLLOW-UP ENCOUNTER An encounter between patient and physician in which an episode previously initiated is followed up.
FOLLOW-UP Regular observation of the health status or health related characteristics of an individual or a group, for whom the doctor has continuing responsibility. It may also be used in relation to patients who have been enrolled in a study.
FOLLOW-UP STUDY A study in which an individual or group is followed over time to see what effect a certain intervention has on their health status. See also COHORT STUDY.
FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT: Assessment used to discover your educational needs (see also Summative)
FRAILTY is the fragility of multiple body systems as their customary reserves diminish with age and disease. Frailty may already be a major path through the end of life, but the standard classifications of illness often fail to recognize it. Therefore, persons in a general state of decline are often misleadingly labeled with "heart failure" or some other specific manifestation of their more general decline. In a sense, fatal chronic conditions are those that occur when the rest of the body's systems have substantial reserves. In contrast, frailty is a fatal chronic condition in which all of the body's systems have little reserve and small upsets cause cascading health problems
FREQUENCY DISTRIBUTION The number of respondents who score at each level of a scale. The distribution can be presented cumulative or categorical, in numbers per category or graphical. A distribution can be normal or skewed. See NORMAL DISTRIBUTION, SKEWED DISTRIBUTION.
FUNCTION A quality, trait or fact that is related to another as to be dependent upon and to vary with this other.
FUNCTIONAL INDEX A numerical indication of a specific function of a given population derived from a specified composite formula.
FUNCTIONAL INDICATOR A variable, susceptible to direct measurement, which reflects the level of function of persons in a community (these measures may be used as components in the calculation of a function index).
FUNCTIONAL STATUS INDEX A measure designed to describe the level of function of members of a population, which assesses physical function, emotional well-being, social function, activities of daily living, feelings, etc. Examples are the Dartmouth COOP Functional Health Assessment Charts (COOP) which have been developed into the Dartmouth COOP/WONCA Charts (COOP/WONCA), Duke-UNC Health Profile (DUHP), the Duke Health Profile (DUKE), the Nottingham Health Profile (NHP), the Sickness Impact Profile (SIP), and the SF-36 Health Survey (SF-36). See also HEALTH OUTCOME MEASURES.
FUNCTIONAL STATUS The ability of a person to perform and adapt to his/her environment, measured both objectively and subjectively over a stated period of time. See also CLINICAL STATUS, HEALTH STATUS, HEALTH RELATED QUALITY OF LIFE.
FUNCTIONING The ability of individuals to perform their normal or usual behaviours and activities which can be observed.