RESUMO
INTRODUCTION AND AIMS: Influenced by medical, scientific and social advances, the changes that have taken place in the needs of the population have given rise to a growing demand for health care in neuropaediatric pathology. The aim of this study was to determine the neuropaediatric health care requirements at the Hospital General Universitario de Guadalajara, a secondary care hospital that is a reference centre for the province of Guadalajara. PATIENTS AND METHODS: We studied the children up to the age of 10 years with a neurological pathology attended at the Hospital General Universitario de Guadalajara over an 8-year period, since the Neuropaediatric unit was opened on 1 July 1992. RESULTS: In all 1,236 children were evaluated, which represents 8.45% of all the children below the age of 10 in the province of Guadalajara, with an average of 154.5 new patients per year. There was a predominance of males, 56.4%, and a high percentage of very young children: 26.05% under the age of 1 year and 50.56% under the age of 3. There has been a progressive increase in the number of Neuropaediatric outpatients, which in the year 2000 accounted for 20% of first visits and 16% of the total number (first and successive) of Paediatric outpatients. 12.94% of the patients in our series had also been examined in different tertiary care hospitals. CONCLUSIONS: There is a very high demand for neuropaediatric care in Guadalajara and it is growing in a significant and progressive manner. We suggest it would be advisable to have a tertiary reference hospital available to help cope with this situation.