[An analysis of the referrals of primary care physicians to a hospital hypertension unit].

OBJECTIVES

To describe the referral of hypertense patients from primary care to a hospital arterial hypertension unit, the quality of the information sent and the profile of the referred patients.

DESIGN

A descriptive crossover study.

SETTING

The Hospital Clínico of San Carlos in Madrid.

PATIENTS AND OTHER PARTICIPANTS

A simple random sample of 368 clinical records belonging to patients attended at the unit over the last 3 years.

MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS

54.6% of patients were referred from primary care. 48.9% of the interclinical (IC) notes were high-quality, with 28.7% acceptable. 36.8% of referrals were considered incorrect, 30.3% because of false unresponsiveness to treatment. Good or acceptable IC notes were associated with 94.1% of correct referrals and only 65.4% of incorrect referrals.

CONCLUSIONS

A high proportion of referrals which were incorrect by the consensus criteria were detected and were caused by inadequate or insufficient medical treatment. There was a statistically significant relationship found between correct referrals and the quality of information sent in the IC note.