RESUMO
OBJECTIVE: To determine what justification there is for Continuous Attention (CA). Secondly the ranking of processes, derivations and effect of the time of year. DESIGN: Descriptive longitudinal and retrospective study. Observational, non-controlled and without random distribution (all cases) and non-blind. SITE. Primary Attention (PA). PATIENTS: All people who attended the Health Centre (HC) from 3-5 pm, in 1990. INTERVENTION: None that would affect the results. MAIN MEASUREMENTS AND RESULTS: Most of those attending did so for IRA's, contusions, wounds, sprains and abdominalgias (table 1). 6.6% were derived, mainly digestive and traumatological processes (table 2). CONCLUSIONS: Compared with similar studies, the demand generated by our population is optimal both in numbers and in justification. Among the, subjectively-speaking non-justified visits the reasons were to avoid ordinary doctors appointments, to get second opinions, to obtain prescriptions, complementary analyses and hospitalisation, and obtain results more quickly, under the emergency service. A significant number of children are attended by general practitioners (GPs), and this induces private consultation. Derived cases are 6.6%, less than the standard 15%. One third of these cases are not hospitalised, especially in months when hospital demand is at its maximum. The lack of coordination between our service and the hospital casualty service is obvious, leading to amongst other things, the "rebound" effect on the user. Closeness between the two services means that an estimated 15% go directly to hospital, a fact which could diminish comparability between this and other studies, although in treating the whole series, the reliability of this study is improved.