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Health Problems Encountered by Nurse Practitioners and Physicians in General Medicine Clinics
Author(s) -
Chen ShuPi C.,
Barkauskas Violet H.,
Chen Edwin H.
Publication year - 1984
Publication title -
research in nursing and health
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.836
H-Index - 85
eISSN - 1098-240X
pISSN - 0160-6891
DOI - 10.1002/nur.4770070203
Subject(s) - specialty , medicine , family medicine , nurse practitioners , nursing , medline , health care , political science , law , economics , economic growth
Distribution of health problems encountered by nurse practitioners and physicians in general/adult medicine clinics was studied. Proportional samples by clinics were selected from a total of 13,039 patient visits made to four clinics during an 18‐week period in 1978. A Patient Encounter Form was used as the instrument and the ICD‐9‐CM as the coding system. Results showed that (a) 25.1% of the 13,039 patient visits were made to the nurse practitioners and 74.9% to the physicians, (b) 23 frequently reported health problems constituted more than 50% of all health problems seen by both provider groups, and (c) health problems with V codes constituted less than 30% of all health problems seen by both provider groups. Many similarities in health problems seen by nurse practitioners and physicians may indicate that nurse practitioners in the general/adult medicine specialty are used more to substitute for physicians in managing selected health problems than to complement medical practice.