Abstract

GARCIA, Francisco Antón et al. Doctor, what do you think about your patients with COPD?. Revista médica Risaralda [online]. 2014, vol.20, n.1, pp.20-23. ISSN 0122-0667.

The assessment of our work in primary health care is a way of detecting the weak points, helping us to improve. The objective of this study is to find out the opinion of the general practitioners (GP) from a health care center (HCC) about their chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) patients. The methodology consisted in using a questionnaire to which the GPs responded before and after presenting these patients assessment data. A random sample of 137 patients with COPD active diagnosis in their electronic medical records was evaluated yearly for a period of three years (from June, 2008 to May, 2011). COPD registered prevalence in the HCC turned from 3.07% in 2009 to 3.23% in 2011. There were a 20.4% of patients incorrectly diagnosed with COPD. Mean age was 70.3 years old (SD 12.4) and 69.3% were males. In the third evaluation year, there were 31% of them registered as smokers, a similar percentage as non-smokers and the rest of them (38%) didn't have any registered data regarding the smoking habit. There were 89 spirometries registered. In 69.3% of the patients a chest X-ray was performed. Anti-pneumococcal vaccination was registered in 12.4% of the cases only. Taking into account these quantitative data we realize that there are aspects to improve. This becomes possible only if we get to know the objective reality that our work assessment brings to light and not just guiding ourselves by the subjective sensation of how we think we have our patients controlled.

Keywords : chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD); primary health care; assessment.

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