FROM PRIMARY CARE TO THE NEUROLOGICAL REFERRAL SERVICE: REFERRAL ANALYSIS AND INTEGRATION BETWEEN LEVELS

The aim of this study was to verify the need for primary care referrals to the neurological referral public service, the waiting time for this specialized appointment, the prevalence of pathologies treated by neurology and the integration between the different levels of care. This was a descriptive, cross-sectional, quantitative, epidemiological study that analyzed the need, reason, waiting time, agreement between primary health care and neurologist diagnosis, the need for complementary tests, the destination of patients and the integration between care levels. A total of 400 individuals participated in this study, mostly from the urban area, women, married, brown, with low income and more than 5 years of study. The waiting time varied from zero to 2357 days, 68% of the cases were first appointment, 96.3% did not have a reference and counter-reference form. About 50% of the cases were considered simple, requiring neither neurological follow-up nor complementary tests. Few referrals had a diagnostic hypothesis. The most prevalent pathologies were headache, epilepsy and cerebrovascular disease. The statistical analysis of the data using SPSS (R) by measures of central tendency, standard deviation, simple and relative frequency, chi-square test (p <0.05) allowed the conclusion that the waiting time is long, there is no integration between the levels nor defined criteria for referral.