Interdiagnosis relationships of physican recording in ambulatory child health care

Abstract

The joint Committee on Quality Assurance developed and validated by expert opinion a list of criteria for each of seven areas of ambulatory child health care: well-child supervision in four age ranges: bith to 1 year, 1 through 5 years, 6 through 12 years, and 13 through 18 years; and three diseases: bronchial asthma, tonsillopharyngitis, and urinary tract infection in the female. Each physician was scored on a list of criteria for each of the seven areas. The relationship among the areas was studied by correlating the scores on these criteria. The degrees of the relationships among the seven areas of care, and the reliability of each list of criteria are reported. All relationships were positive. Various age ranges of health supervision were more strongly related to one another than to any of the diseases. Individual diseases were more strongly related to one another than to health supervision. Reliabilities of each list ranged from .74 to .95. All correlations between areas were positive and, except for health supervision (birth to one year) with the three diseases, significant (p less than.01). These high correlations would imply a great deal of homogeneity among health care areas of ambulatory child health care.