[Role of primary care teams in hospitalization of children under 2 years of age?].
OBJECTIVE
To determine whether the structure of primary care teams on carrying out the healthy child health programme leads to a drop in the risk of admission to hospital of children under two, in comparison with the traditional clinic or out-clinic health system.


METHODS
Case-reference epidemiological study.


METHODS
40% of the children under 24 months admitted to paediatric or neonate floors of the Marqués de Valdecilla University Hospital. Reference: 15% of the recently born children alive in this hospital. Information was gathered through face-to-face interview and by examining health cards. The study ran from April 1995 to May 1996.


RESULTS
Children under two monitored habitually by a doctor belonging to a primary care team showed a drop in risk of hospital admission for all clinical diagnoses of 0.57 (95% CI, 0.35-0.93), after adjustment due to various confusion factors such as maternal education, social class, ethnic background, mother's age, mother's tobacco consumption, natural breast-feeding at birth, admission at birth. There was a drop of risk of hospital admission for high temperature without apparent cause in those children monitored habitually by a team doctor (adjusted RR = 0.41; 95% CI, 0.19-0.90).


CONCLUSIONS
The advantages of the paediatric health care reform with the structuring of the primary care teams and the accompanying activities performed lead to a drop in the risk of hospital admission of those children under two years old who are habitually monitored by a doctor belonging to a primary care team.
Servicio de Pediatría, Hospital Universitario Marqués de Valdecilla, Santander. erodrigo@mundivla.es
M R
MR
Pardo Crespo
R
R
Pérez Iglesias
J
J
Llorca
E
E
Rodrigo Calabia
L
L
Alvarez Granda
M
M
Delgado-Rodríguez
D005260:Female; D006760:Hospitalization / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006785:Hospitals, University / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D008297:Male; D010348:Patient Care Team; D011320:Primary Health Care / Q000379:methods / Q000458:organization & administration*; D012307:Risk Factors; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D013030:Spain