Browsing by Author "Colak, Muhteber"

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Caregiver Reasons for Tertiary Health-Care Seeking for Children Aged 12 Years
(Wiley-blackwell, 2016) Yaprak, Seval; Bulut, Ulku; Okudan, Yunus Emre; Gokdemir, Ozden; Colak, Muhteber; Yildirim, Ediz; Guldal, Dilek
BackgroundIn Turkey, a mandatory referral system is not used. Caregivers, for their children, present directly to health-care providers at all levels. This allows patients to present directly to university hospitals. In this study, reasons for university hospital-treatment seeking by caregivers for child health problems is discussed. MethodsThis was a cross-sectional descriptive study at Dokuz Eylul University Faculty of Medicine, Izmir, Turkey, of 235 caregivers whose children were admitted to the outpatient clinic of the General Pediatrics Department between 4 and 11 April 2013. They completed a questionnaire on demographic data and reasons for presentation to the university hospital. Mann-Whitney U-test was used to compare group means, and Pearson chi-squared test for ratios between groups. P <0.05 was considered to be statistically significant. ResultsA total of 54.5% of participants lived far from the hospital. The most frequent complaints involved the respiratory tract, among which the most frequent complaint was cough. Time from symptom onset to presentation was 7 days in 58.3% of patients, and 48.9% had never presented to another institution. The most common reason for choosing the university hospital was the availability of the necessary tests (88.1%). ConclusionsDespite common use of primary health-care systems, with regard to tertiary hospital presentation, the most important factors for preferring tertiary hospital presentation were caregiver trust in tertiary hospital resources for diagnosis and treatment.