The Potential of Primary Care on Skin-Diseased Patients of the Health Promoting Hospital in 14 Southern Provinces, Thailand

Abstract

The Southern Regional Hospital of Tropical Dermatology, Trang province, is the one and only tertiary care dermatology-related medical center among fourteen provinces in the southern region of Thailand which provides health care from specialists after referral from other hospitals, as well as delivers general information on dermatology to the community. The Southern Regional Hospital of Tropical Dermatology, Trang province, aimed to investigate the resource problems and the needs of the hospital in looking after the dermatological patients. The survey research was conducted in 51 sampling areas through Convenient Sampling by online Self-Administered Questionnaire. The research tool includes one questionnaire, which was divided into six sections: 1) personal information of the respondent 2) general information of the hospital 3) statistical information of the year 2016 4) information on resource, knowledge and the need of treating dermatological patients 5) other needs and 6) recommendations. The current problems, in terms of resource shortages and facility needs, were observed at the Health Promoting Hospital in fourteen Southern provinces (n = 51). The results indicated that the main cause of referral involved the lack of specialist, medication, and knowledge. The small-sized Health Promoting Hospital which provides the close interaction with patients was found to have a great gap of dermatology knowledge, especially on medical allergy and its treatment, as well as lesion. The Health Promoting Hospital displayed high potential in delivering knowledge and giving advice to patients. This was due to the staffs who were not only interested in attending the seminars on dermatology, but also eager to receive suggestion from the Southern Regional Hospital of Tropical Dermatology, Trang province, which led to the activity that could suitably resolve the problems and satisfy the needs of the Health Promoting Hospital. When considered the deficiencies regarding the hospital size, the research found that the large-sized hospitals had the specialized dermatologists being rotated in the all areas. In terms of medical deficiency, it fell to the large-sized hospitals (33.33%). All the small-, medium- and large-sized hospitals held the laboratory in the low scale. The small-sized hospitals were reported to lack the knowledge on dermatology, especially medical allergy, management of drug allergy and basic diagnosis in the high scale. However, these deficiencies were consistent with the needs of being advised by the Southern Regional Hospital of Tropical Dermatology, Trang Province. Despite the high-level system or channel of giving dermatology-related advice to patients, which showed the potential of receiving information and knowledge, the medium-sized hospitals turned out to be needed advice the most. Moreover, the survey indicated that the Clinical Practice Guideline (CPG) preparation in all-sized hospitals was in unsatisfied level. For the dermatology knowledge, the large-sized hospitals were least used data base system (less than 10%), compared to the small- and medium-sized hospitals.