Objective: to evaluate the impact of rehabilitation service in two primary care units (PCU).
Methods: a comparative cross-sectional study was performed in two PCU (No. 53 and No. 51). The former has a rehabilitation service and the second one refers to a rehabilitation consultant at a specialized hospital. The variables evaluated were: amount of cases, days of disability, average days/cases, and average cost/case according to specific disease considering the five main medical disease required disability for general or risk work disease. We used descriptive statistics for results and Student's t test to evaluate significance.
Results: back pain was the first cause of disablement; the average in opportunity care was seven days. The average number of days disability benefit for hand trauma, ankle sprain, and for back pain was lower in PCU No. 53, as well as for cervical sprain, but slightly higher for knee sprain. Evaluating the global incapacity days average and cost for each case, we found a significant difference to PCU No. 53.
Conclusions: recovery time to return work was faster and lower the average cost in patients from to the PCU No. 53 which has its own rehabilitation service.