DOI: 10.36347/sjams.2022.v10i01.005

Pages: 28-33

Introduction: Referral system is an important part for providing good quality holistic management in child care. A good number of paediatric patients ranging in age from newborn to 18 years old, have been recorded in neurology outpatient and inpatient settings. Several departments might have child patients who need certain specialist care on neurological disorders who are referred by specialists of other disciplines to pediatrics neurology department for specified diagnosis & proper management, since they excel in such cases. Aim of the study: The aim of this study was to track how patients from other specialties of paediatrics get referred to the specialists of pediatric neurosciences department. Materials & Methodology: We conducted this prospective study of recruiting 365 children who were referred to Pediatric Neurosciences Department of Dhaka Shishu Hospital by other physicians. Ethical clearance was taken from concerned authority. The data were analyzed using simple proportion, rates and tables and was presented as frequency by using MS-Excel & SPSS version 20.0. Results: From the total 365 patients, the majority of the 288(78.9%) referred patients came from the general paediatrics OPD of various hospitals and private practices. Among the remainder, 49(13.42%) were from paediatric orthopedic OPD, 13(3.56%) from ophthalmology OPD 7(1.91%) from ophthalmology IPD, 7(1.91%) from neurosurgery OPD and 1(0.3%) from neurosurgery IPD. On the other hand, according to frequency of diagnosis, 88(24.11%) Epilepsy, 64(17.53%) Autism spectrum disorder, 41(11.23%) Neuromuscular disease, 39(10.68%) Neurometabolic disorder, 27(7.4%) Cerebral palsy, 30(8.22%) Syndromic child with ID, 27(7.4%) Cerebral palsy, 17(4.66%) Somatoform disorder, 13(3.56%) Constitutional speech delay & finally 2(0.55%) Peripheral neuropathy had been found in this study. Conclusion: The most common cause for referral was to seek advice and management from a special multidisciplinary service. ...........