[Clinical and epidemiological analysis of 1,451 pediatric surgery consultations in a third level hospital referred from the primary health care sector].

OBJECTIVE

The aim of this study was to determine the pediatric surgery demands in a third level hospital due to referrals from the primary health care sector in order to better plan the work and continuing education programs.

PATIENTS AND METHODS

The total number of patients (1,451) consulting a service of pediatric surgery for the first time and referred from the primary care sector during a twelve month period were studied.

RESULTS

A total number of 1,451 children, with a maximum age of 14 years consulted. The assistential pressure was 22.01 consultations/pediatrician/day in one year. Consultations by children older than 7 years of age comprised 31.42% of the total. As for the distribution of these consultations, 61.26% were with a previous appointment, 38.74% were remitted to the second level. The most frequent reasons for consultations were inguinal hernia and hydrocele (30.46% of the cases), followed by phimosis (28.8%), undescended testis (8.2%) and skin neoplasms (5.78%).

CONCLUSIONS

The demands of pediatric surgery consultations referred from the primary health care sector is very important. It is necessary to adapt the continuing education programs so that pediatric residents and primary medicine physicians are more aware of the surgical pathologies that are most frequently found in primary care centers and to decrease the assistential pressure of the pediatric surgery consultations in the hospital.