Sivanandan Arulprakash, Kumar S Ganesh, Krishnamoorthy Yuvaraj
Campaigner, The Other Media, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India.
Department of Preventive and Social Medicine, JIPMER, Puducherry, India.
J Educ Health Promot. 2020 Apr 28;9:85. doi: 10.4103/jehp.jehp_593_19. eCollection 2020.
First point-of-care (FPC) at the primary health care (PHC) level is an important public health issue at the global level. Patients directly come to tertiary health centers without a referral.
Hence, the current study was done to assess the proportion of individuals availing health-care services from rural health center (RHC) as FPC and reasons for not availing it.
A community-based cross-sectional study was conducted in Puducherry, coastal South India, among 367 households with 1510 individuals. Sociodemographic details, recent FPC during the past 6 months, morbidity profile, and reasons for not seeking were collected from all the individuals.
About 44.5% (672/1510) of individuals used any health facilities, of which 70.4% (473/672) used RHC as the FPC. About 33.2% of individuals had a respiratory illness, 22.3% had general signs and symptoms. About 24.6% (32/130) mentioned the reasons for not seeking care as lack of appropriate health facilities.
More than one-fourth of the study population not utilized services at PHC level. Improving the health facilities may help to increase these services.
基层医疗保健（PHC）层面的首诊医疗点（FPC）是全球层面一个重要的公共卫生问题。患者未经转诊就直接前往三级医疗中心。
因此，开展本研究以评估从农村卫生中心（RHC）获得首诊医疗服务的个体比例以及未获得该服务的原因。
在印度南部沿海的本地治里对367户家庭中的1510名个体进行了一项基于社区的横断面研究。收集了所有个体的社会人口学详细信息、过去6个月内的最近首诊情况、发病情况以及未就诊的原因。
约44.5%（672/1510）的个体使用过任何医疗设施，其中70.4%（473/672）将农村卫生中心作为首诊医疗点。约33.2%的个体患有呼吸道疾病，22.3%有一般体征和症状。约24.6%（32/130）提到未就诊的原因是缺乏合适的医疗设施。
超过四分之一的研究人群未利用基层医疗保健层面的服务。改善医疗设施可能有助于增加这些服务。
