Delaurier Ashley, Bernatsky Sasha, Raymond Marie-Hélène, Feldman Debbie Ehrmann
University of Montreal, Faculty of Medicine, School of Rehabilitation.
McGill University Health Centre, Department of Medicine, Divisions of Rheumatology and Clinical Epidemiology, Montreal, Que.
Physiother Can. 2013 Summer;65(3):238-43. doi: 10.3138/ptc.2011-62.
Although arthritis is the leading cause of pain and disability in Canada, and physical therapy (PT) and occupational therapy (OT) are beneficial both for chronic osteoarthritis (OA) and for inflammatory arthritis such as rheumatoid arthritis (RA), there appear to be problems with access to such services. The aim of this study was to document wait times from referral by physician to consultation with PT or OT in the public health care system for people with arthritis in Quebec, Canada.
Appointments were requested by telephone, using hypothetical case scenarios; wait times were defined as the time between initial request and appointment date. Descriptive statistics were used to examine the wait times in relation to diagnosis, service provider and geographic area.
For both scenarios (OA and RA) combined, 13% were offered an appointment within 6 months, 13% offered given an appointment within 6-12 months, 24% were told they would need to wait longer than 12 months, and 22% were refused services. The remaining 28% were told they would require an evaluation appointment for functional assessment before being given an appointment for therapy. No difference was found between RA and OA diagnoses.
Our study suggests that most people with arthritis living in the province of Quebec are not receiving publicly accessible PT or OT intervention in a timely manner.
尽管关节炎是加拿大疼痛和残疾的主要原因，并且物理治疗（PT）和职业治疗（OT）对慢性骨关节炎（OA）和类风湿关节炎（RA）等炎症性关节炎均有益处，但获得此类服务似乎存在问题。本研究的目的是记录加拿大魁北克省关节炎患者在公共医疗系统中从医生转诊到接受PT或OT会诊的等待时间。
通过电话使用假设病例场景来预约；等待时间定义为从最初预约到预约日期之间的时间。使用描述性统计来检查与诊断、服务提供者和地理区域相关的等待时间。
对于两种情况（OA和RA）合并而言，13%的患者在6个月内获得预约，13%的患者在6至12个月内获得预约，24%的患者被告知需要等待超过12个月，22%的患者被拒绝服务。其余28%的患者被告知在获得治疗预约之前需要进行功能评估的评估预约。RA和OA诊断之间未发现差异。
我们的研究表明，居住在魁北克省的大多数关节炎患者没有及时获得可公开获得的PT或OT干预。
