Effect of education and training on patient referral by public primary health care workers in Mushin Local Government Area to State General Hospitals.

Background: Poor referral linkages had been noted and documented by various researchers on the health care delivery system in Nigeria. This study is designed to find out the situation of referral practices and make recommendations on how to improve the situation.

Materials and Methods: A quasi-experimental study was carried out to determine the effect of health education and training on the Knowledge, attitude and practices of patient referral by primary health care workers in Mushin and Surulere Local Government Areas of Lagos State of Nigeria. A total sample of 170 primary health care workers was involved in the study: 85 in each of the Local Government Areas. The study involved three stages, the pre-intervention, the intervention phase, and a post intervention phase of the study.

Results: Analysis of the responses of the two groups showed that there was no statistically significant difference in the responses in the areas concerning their attitude towards, and knowledge of patient referral at the pre-intervention phase. In the post-intervention phase the differences in the responses between the two groups in the area of practice of patient referral were statistically significant. In the control group 18.8% of the workers used the two-way referral form in the pre-intervention phase. This rose to 27.1% in the post intervention phase. In the experimental group, 17.5% used the two-way referral form in the pre-intervention phase, and this rose to 69.4% in the post intervention phase.

Conclusion: The conclusion was that education and training on patient referral could improve the patient referral activities of primary health care workers.