Practice and opinion of doctors in hospitals toward referral system in Iraq

Abstract EN

Background: Primary Health care (PHC) is unanimous to be the cornerstone of a person-centered health system.

While the adoption of a well-function, two-way, and organized referral system is the mainstay in the development of an efficient healthcare delivery system.

Objective: To Assess the practice & opinion of doctors in the hospitals toward the referral system.

to determine the doctors in the hospital's commitment to referral system instructions and guidelines.

Subjects and Methods: A cross-sectional study with analytic elements was conducted in nine Iraqi governorates.

Eight doctors from each health directorate, resulting in a total of 72 doctors using a specially designed questionnaire.

Statistical analysis was done by using SPSS, the P≤0.05 was considered statistically significant.

Results: of the total 72 physicians, 31(43.1%) aged 40-49years, 48(66.7%) were males, and 58(80.6%) were specialists., 58 doctors (80.6%) had no coordination with the PHC-doctors, the same percentage considered the current referral system is ineffective.

PHC patients-crowded, doctors-shortage were the causes of inadequately filling PHC-part of the referral form.

And PHC-hospital doctors-coordination had a significant association with their age, gender, and their thinking about adequate filling.

Conclusion: despite the importance of the referral system, half of the doctors disagreed about the current referral system’s effectiveness; & most of them had no coordination with the PHC-doctors.

PHC crowded/doctors’ shortage the main causes of inadequate filling PHC part of referral-form.