FAMILY PRACTICE AWARENESS IN PATIENTS APPLYING TO THE EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT AND RECEIVING A GREEN TRIAGE CODE.

Objectives: In our country and all over the world, the overcrowding of Emergency Service is seen as a problem. Our goal in this study is to determine Family Practice awareness of patients who applies to Emergency Service with green triage code and to find out reasons for using Emergency Service instead of Family Practice. Materials and Methods: This study was performed in a training and research hospital emergency department for one month of the period. After patients, who applied to Emergency Service, were evaluated in Triage Department, the patients with Green Triage Code were assessed by a physician. Patients without acute emergency pathology were informed about the study, and informed consent was taken. It was provided to patients to answer the questionnaire. One thousand twenty-six patients were taken to the study and divided into two groups as emergencies and non-emergencies. Results: There were 305 patients in the emergency group, and there were 721 patients in non-emergency group. There was no significant difference between an emergency and non-emergency group according to gender, age, education, and the number of emergency applications. The most frequent application was from the younger group of 18-29 age range in both groups. With the increase in the patient age, the number of applications to the Emergency Department due to emergency and non-emergency reasons decreased. 57.30% of the patients who applied to the Emergency Department for non-emergency reasons know who the Family Physician is; 42.70% stated that they did not know who the Family Physician was. 52,10% of the patients who applied to the Emergency Department for non-emergency reasons stated that they knew the location of the health center where the Family Physician worked, and 47.90% of them stated that they did not know the location of the health center where the Family Physician worked. Conclusion: It can be provided to reduce the density of Emergency Service by creating Family Practice awareness. Application difficulties in Family Practice lead patients to apply to Emergency Service more. We believe that to ease application to Family Practice could reduce redundant applications to Emergency Service. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]