OBJECTIVES Against the public health implications of untreated mental illness among general hospital inpatients, this study aimed firstly to examine hospital physicians' level of referral to a psychiatric service, and secondly, to explore the extent of these doctors' knowledge of psychiatric issues by comparing their reasons for referring patients with patients' final psychiatric diagnoses. M...

UNLABELLED Early diagnosis of oral, head and neck cancer is very important. Delay in diagnosis and referral to a specialist unit can result in an enlarged tumour with an increased chance of metastatic spread which will result in upstaging of the tumour, thus worsening the five year survival rate. There is a great need for early identification and referral of potentially malignant lesions by gen...

BACKGROUND The referral letter is an important document facilitating the transfer of care from a general practitioner (GP) to secondary care. Hospital doctors have often criticised the quality and content of referral letters, and the effectiveness of improvement efforts remains uncertain. METHODS A cluster randomised trial was conducted using referral templates for patients in four diagnostic...

OBJECTIVE To assess the referral pattern and identify the appropriateness of the referral letter and consultants feedback. METHODS This cross-sectional study was performed at the Family Medicine Department, Sharurah Armed Forces Hospital (SAFH), Sharurah, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The study population (sampled population) included all referrals in one month (June 2009). We obtained the appropr...

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is commonly encountered in primary care, and prompt identification referral vital to ensure timely treatment with disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARDs) better long-term outcomes. This article discusses identification, referral, diagnosis current management options for RA.

BACKGROUND Partner notification (PN) is the process whereby sexual partners of an index patient are informed of their exposure to a sexually transmitted infection (STI) and the need to obtain treatment. For the person (index patient) with a curable STI, PN aims to eradicate infection and prevent re-infection. For sexual partners, PN aims to identify and treat undiagnosed STIs. At the level of s...

The number of bilingual-bicultural students in the US continues to grow exponentially. With this growth, educators have an increased need for ensuring that all equal language learning opportunities. It is, therefore, crucial bilingual access valid tools can serve as guides determining if a speech and referral is needed. Receptive Expressive Language Pre-Referral Protocol Bilingual Learners [REL...

health care system is organized to achieve more efficiency as well as developing public equity and providing access to the first, second and third levels of services. family physician is in the first line of the health care system; in other words, family physician is the health system’s goalkeeper. according to classification of health services, gaining access to specialized services becomes po...

BACKGROUND Recognition of mental illness in the pediatric emergency department (PED) followed by brief, problem oriented interventions may improve health-care seeking behavior and quality of life. The objective of this study was to compare the frequency of mental health follow up after an enhanced referral compared to a simple referral in children presenting to the PED with unrecognized mental ...