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[Service demand flow and planning in primary care]
M M Alonso Martínez1, F J Mora Guío, M E Calonge García
1Centro de Salud San Fernando, Unidad Docente de Medicina Familiar y Comunitaria, Móstoles, Madrid.
Objective:
We wish to know the moment from which people first came into contact with general practitioners in Primary Care and which socio-demographic variables influence this.
Design:
Prospective, observational study.
Setting:
Primary Care, general practitioners.
Participants:
469 people newly registered with a general practitioner. Follow-up study is 12 months.
Measurements And Main Results:
We have made a Kaplan-Meier survival analysis and a comparison of curves with a log rank test. 50% of population visit for the first time during the fourth months following their registration. 75% of newly-registered of people attend at least once during the first year following registration. Women are more likely to attend than men (p < 0.001), people older than 53 years of age (p < 0.001) and young people with chronic health problems (p < 0.01) are also more likely to visit the doctor than others.
Conclusions:
At least one time at year had attended 75% of people of new registration in Primary Care. Women, people older than 53 and young people with chronic health problems attend before. This observation leads us to begin the "finding case" strategy as a screening method, to use this fact to instigate prevention activities, health education campaigns and to avoid overburdening the workload, in order to manage services request.