A study of all consultations and referrals to other medical specialists made by family physicians was undertaken in Choon-Chun for eight months in 1984. There were 12,008 patients, visits in eight months, from which 247 referrals were made. So the overall rate of referrals was 2.1%.
Internists were the most frequently consulted, followed by obstetricians and gynecologists, orthopedic surgeons, general surgeons, otolaryngologists and pediatricians.
About one half of the referrals were made because of the reason for more diagnostic work-ups and/or specific treatments, and a quarter of the referrals due to lack of facilities.
The problems in category XVI(symptoms, signs and ill-defined conditions) of the ICHPPC-2-Defined were referred most frequently to the other specialists.
It was suggested that the variables which affect the referral patterns of family physicians were their levels of medical competencies and experiences, distributional patterns of medical resources and medical care delivery system, communication mechanism between family practitioners and consultants, and so on.
