Ji Yeon Jung | 2 Articles |
Background
After the referral system had been established, a tendency of patients who prefer to consult themselves to a specialist with 'self requested referral' is increasing in university hospital family medicine clinics. This study was conducted to know which factors of patients who for the fi rst time visited university hospital family medicine clinic to require medical request for 'self requested referral' to a specialist infl uence 'self requested referral' tendency. Methods: Among 905 patients, 647 agreed to the questionnaire were included in this study. We divided the patients in two, the 'self requested referral' group and the 'general patients' group that does not. Patients completed a four-item, selfadministered questionnaire. Results: 'Self requested referral' group tended to have no experience in family medicine and tended to be negative about the need for family medicine (P < 0.001) The factors that have effect on 'self requested referral' are age, occupation, education, experience of family medicine, and recognition degree of necessity of family medicine. Patients in 20-39 of age, who were white colored, higher education had higher tendency of 'self requested referral' and patients who had no experience in family medicine and lower degree of recognition about the necessity of family medicine had higher tendency of 'self-referral'. Conclusion: It is necessary to fi nd ways to increase satisfaction of patients who have factors that have effect on their 'self requested referral' tendency such as age, occupation, education, experience of family medicine, and degree of recognition about the necessity of family medicine.
Background
It is important to evaluate the functional ability of the elderly for optimal care. This study was conducted to identify factors associated with dependence for activities of daily living (ADL) and instrumental activities of daily living (IADL) in elderly adults in Korea.Methods: A cross-sectional study of data from the third Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (KNHANES III) 2005 was undertaken. The sample consisted of 3,656 participants, 65 years of age or older. Multifactorial regression analysis was used to identify associations between ADL and IADL dependence and sociodemographics, lifestyle, and health history.Results: Among the 629 (17.2%) ADL-dependent and signifi cantly and independently associated factors were age, lower education level, health assistance or no-insurance, stroke, urinary incontinence, diabetes, arthritis, and lung cancer. Among the 1,674 (55.7%) IADL-dependent and significantly and independently associated factors were age, lower education level, single or widowed, male, stroke, arthritis, glaucoma and/or cataract. Conclusion: Functional dependence in older adults was directly related to aging and had multiple determinants. Awareness of these determinants should help design health programs that can identify individuals who are at high risk of losing their independence, and implement interventions for slowing or reversing the process. Citations Citations to this article as recorded by
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