The nature of service usage in a Maltese health centre treatment room

Abstract

This project aimed to explore the nature of service usage in a Maltese health centre treatment room. A descriptive, exploratory small-scale design was selected to fulfil the objectives. The study included 60 randomly selected participants coming in to the treatment room during the day, afternoon and evening in a main health centre. Participants were recruited and interviewed on different days of the week. The sample consisted of people who qualified to participate according to the inclusion criteria for the study. All the structured interviews were conducted in the treatment room and took approximately ten minutes each. Every fifth patient registered in the treatment room was chosen and all participants found no objection to be included giving a 100% response rate. Data was gathered by structured interviews using a written guide. The structured interview addressed the same issues in the same way for all participants, and was carried out in a very precise, non-judgmental manner. Structured interviews gathered information about the type of care delivered in the clinic, thus identifying the "real" situation. Findings imply that the Health Centre treatment room is mostly frequented by Maltese with more males attended than females during the study period. Another interesting feature is that a high proportion of participants are young adults between the ages of 18 and 28. The findings of the study demonstrate that more than half of the participants visited the Treatment Room repeatedly. The participants presented various conditions, most of which were emergencies, such as lacerated wounds and asthma. An additional leading role of gate-keeping is identified. Results show that this role helps to avoid unnecessary overload at the Admitting and Emergency Department. The Treatment Room performs well and treatment is implemented while only a minimum of referrals are sent to the General Hospital for further treatment. Several recommendations to improve such service are suggested and interesting issues that could spur further research in the future are highlighted, thus there might be suggestions that larger scale studies might be recommended. Since this was the first evaluation carried out about the treatment room service, recommendations arc made for other service assessments in the future. This is essential to monitor the service closely and to implement necessary changes.