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Utilization of Primary Care versus Specialized Care in Children with and without Chronic Illness: A Population‐Based Study
Author(s) -
WESTBOM L.,
KORNFÄLT R.
Publication year - 1991
Publication title -
acta pædiatrica
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.772
H-Index - 115
eISSN - 1651-2227
pISSN - 0803-5253
DOI - 10.1111/j.1651-2227.1991.tb11898.x
Subject(s) - medicine , ambulatory care , primary care , ambulatory , population , primary health care , pediatrics , chronic disease , health care , emergency medicine , family medicine , environmental health , economics , economic growth
. Children's utilization of curative care was studied to analyse the division of responsibilities between undifferentiated primary care and specialized care. All chronically ill ( n = 510), a control group ( n = 287) and the total population 0–15 years of age ( n = 6080) in a primary care district were studied using register data. Chronically ill children comprised 8.4% of the total child population and were registered for 1/10 of the primary health care visits, 1/3 of the specialized visits, 1/3 of the hospitalizations and 112 of the in‐patient days of all children. The yearly ambulatory visits were 3.7/child in the chronically ill and 1.5/child in the control group, of which 1/3 and 2/3, respectively, were to primary care. Utilization of specialized care increased with disability. Chronically ill children visited primary care mainly for acute respiratory infections but seldom for allergic or other chronic conditions.