J Korean Community Nurs.  1989 Feb;1(1):144-171.

A Study on Community Health Practitioners' Jobs

• Kim SH

Abstract

This study has been carried out under the supervision by the Academic Society of Community Nursing in order to provide basic data for consistent development of the community health practitioner system and effective running of job education courses by investigating the conditions of primary health care services provided by them. The survey was carried out on all community health practitioners from August 1 to November 25 1986, and the copies of the questionnaire replied by 1,438 subjects, which were useful for data processing, have been analyzed. As a result of the analysis of the data from this study, we have reached the following conclusions. 1. The average number of residents provided with health services by one community health practitioner was 1,675, and thus it is conjectured that the total number of Korean people who receive health services provided by community health practitioners nationwide is about 3.35 million. This figure accounts for about 8% of the total Korean population, and about 28% of the rural population were provided with health services by community health practitioners. 2. The adequate number of people that community health practitioners have claimed to be ideal in their services is 1,360 in average, which is less than the actual number of residents by 315. 3. The most widely distributed medical health resources in local societies in which community health clinics were established were pharmacies (48.2%), but the medical health institution type most frequently used by local residents was the community health clinic (56.2%). 4. The medical health institutions that community health practitioners most frequently referred their patients to were primary and secondary clinics and hospitals (73.4%), public health centers (17.3%), and public health center branches (5.6%) in that order. 5. The nearby medical health institutions that is most cooperative with community health practitioners were public health centers, which were followed by public health center branches and private medical institutions in that order. 6. 78.8% of the subject community health practitioners showed positive responses about the establishment of the expert nursing supervisor system in which community health practitioners could be specially guided and supervised. 7. The community health practitioners contributed themselves to their job performances in "common disease control" among other job areas. They spent about 3.5 hours in "common disease control" a day on an 8-hours-a-day base except Sunday. Given these results, the situation in Korea is that 72% of the rural population has not yet received primary health care services by community health practitioners. Some of them live in places adjacent to small cities and counties, but they receive treatment-based medical health services in the way that they are treated when they contract a disease. Thus, given the current situation in which medical health service levels are promoted, health requirements increase, and the medical insurance is extended to the whole people, preventive medical health services should be enhanced in terms of the extension of primary health care programs provided by community health practitioners. This extension of the system is expected to prevent patients from rushing to particular medical institutions (secondary and tertiary), especially to general hospitals, greatly contribute to finances of the medical insurance, and in addition, meet increasing health requirements. Thus, we can comply to the WHO slogan "Health to All Mankind until 2000 A.D." by extending primary health care services provided by community health practitioners to middle-sized and small cities and big cities as well as rural and fishing regions.

MeSH Terms

Education
Health Resources
Health Services
Hospitals, General
Humans
Insurance
Korea
Nursing
Organization and Administration
Pharmacies
Primary Health Care
Public Health
Running
Rural Population