To clarify whether out-of-hours health centre visits and referrals to hospital are equally distributed in the three different duty models being used for health care in southwestern Finland.
A medical audit of 2926 health centre visits and 223 referrals to hospitals by general practitioners (GPs) on duty. The duty models were formed on the basis of a possibility to utilize a local health centre during nights and weekends. Two-month follow-up period.
Primary health care. Population 46438.
Out-of-hours visits to health centres and referrals to hospital, and the effect of age and duty model on referrals and visits.
Patients over 64 years of age received most of the referrals although they visited the health care centre less frequently than the 0-14 year-olds (p