[Comparative study on the influence of health education on perceived recurrences after physiotherapy].
OBJECTIVE
To compare the repercussion on requests for follow-up treatment of the inclusion of health education in the physiotherapist's primary care work.


METHODS
Health centre (A). Hospital (B).


METHODS
Patients attending over a six month period two physiotherapy units due to back-ache, cervical pain or a painful shoulder. Group A had 50 patients; and B, 97. The groups were homogeneous by age and gender: A averaged 47 years old (+ 13.4) and was 64% women; B was 45 (+ 12.1) and 69% women. The percentage of pathologies was also homogeneous with a p > 0.1 in back-ache and cervical pain and p > 0.90 for painful shoulders. At centre B (catchment population 73,000) individualised therapy (electrotherapy) was used. At A (catchment 16,000) there was a complete intervention plus health education. A monitoring period for the six following months was set up to observe, for both groups, the number of people who requested Physiotherapy for the same pathology.


RESULTS
A statistical analysis contrasting equality of proportions by analysing contingency tables with the Chi2 test was performed. During the monitoring period five new treatments in group A (10%) and 29 in B (30%) were requested, which meant a significant difference between the two groups with a p < 0.01 confirmed by an analysis of remainders.


CONCLUSIONS
Incorporating health education into the Physiotherapist's activities provided in the medium term fewer requests from relapsed patients. It would be interesting to perform longer studies to check if these differences last.
Departamento de Fisioterapia, Universidad de Murcia.
F
F
Medina Mirapeix
J
J
Brotons Roman
J
J
Manrique Sánchez
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001416:Back Pain / Q000628:therapy; D003627:Data Interpretation, Statistical; D005260:Female; D006266:Health Education; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009333:Neck; D059408:Pain Management; D026741:Physical Therapy Modalities; D011320:Primary Health Care; D012008:Recurrence; D012782:Shoulder
Estudio comparativo sobre la influencia de la educación sanitaria en las recidivas sentidas en fisioterapia.