[Requests for microbiological diagnosis by primary care physicians in the Salamanca area]

Aten Primaria. 1997 Mar 15;19(4):195-8.
[Article in Spanish]

Abstract

Objectives: To assess requests for microbiological analysis made by Primary Care doctors and to evaluate the quality of the procedure by the indicator: proportion of contaminated urine samples.

Design: A retrospective crossover study of requests to the Microbiology Laboratory in the University Hospital of Salamanca during 1995.

Setting: The study covered the Salamanca Health Area, which consists of 35 Health Centres and a catchment population of 358,408.

Patients and other participants: The requests for microbiological diagnosis and results of the 43,317 samples processed were analysed.

Interventions: The data was distributed according to care level and the Area's Health Centres.

Measurements and results: 9,574 (22%) of the total number of samples received turned out positive, 27.4% of the requests originated in Primary Care (PC). The overall request rate from PC was 33 per 1,000 inhabitants.

Conclusions: The microbiological analysis most frequently requested from PC is urine culture. Relationship between request and positives is 4 to 1.

Publication types

  • Comparative Study

MeSH terms

  • Bacteria / isolation & purification
  • Cross-Over Studies
  • Feces / microbiology
  • Female
  • Fungi / isolation & purification
  • Humans
  • Male
  • Microbiological Techniques / statistics & numerical data*
  • Primary Health Care*
  • Retrospective Studies
  • Rural Population
  • Spain
  • Urban Population
  • Urine / microbiology
  • Vagina / microbiology