[The assessment of neurological care needs in the health sector of de San Juan de Alicante by key-informants model].

BACKGROUND

Specific health care planning should be based on the care request according the most adjusted evaluations method. Data obtained from each geographic area may be most comparable with other from close areas.

AIM

To determinate the neurological needs in the health area 16 of Valencian Community that includes the care corresponding to Hospital of San Juan de Alicante.

MATERIAL AND METHOD

We conducted a survey among key informants using the primary care physicians of the area. The population of the healthy area is 144,781 people and includes 78 primary care physicians. We used the formula proposed by Kurtzke in 1982 in order to calculate the neurological time.

RESULTS

We obtain a response rate of 82% the total number of neurological hours requested was 5,823.84 hours by year, which supposes a need of 8.82 neurologists by 100,000 people and nears a needs of 12.77 neurologists for the healthy area. These data are clearly higher that the obtained in other close areas using the same methodology (5 neurologists by 100,000 inh in Alcoi, 6 neurologists by 100,000 inh in the area corresponding to General Hospital of Alicante). The topics that require more than 100 hours by year are: migraine (1,205), lumbar backache (1,104), alcoholism (762), cranial trauma (442), deafness (285), stroke (272), seizures (181), disk herniation (166), cervical backache (140), zoster (162), psychosis (118), which supposes 83.12% of the whole neurological time.

CONCLUSIONS

The data situated the area within a model of direct neurological care similar to that in the United States.