RESUMEN
In 2007, a national survey estimated to up to 800,000 the number of homeless individuals in France. Ten percent of them live constantly in the street; often very dissocialized and in precarious conditions. Thereby it remains difficult for homeless to have access to a medical and social support. In order to identify the medical and social needs of this population, we performed a one year observational prospective study in two reception centres in Perpignan. 629 (99%) out of 635 answers were analysed. The most represented age group is 39-49 years (29,2%) with an over-representation of males (82,7%). The most frequent pathologies are psychological distress (43,9% of requests, including anxious problems 23%, and sleep disturbances 24,4%). Medical affections represented 15,7% of the cases (mainly nutritional deficiency), and skin diseases 15,%. Addictive behaviour was frequent including tobacco (84%), alcohol (17%), and drug addiction (9%). 21,7% of this population had a regular work, and 97,8% with fixed term contracts, but 45,1% did not have any health cover 17,6% of homeless did not obtain any answer to their medical request (lack of suitable medicine, or an impossibility to pull out further tests in order). To solve some aspects of that problem, family doctor can rely on a medical and social network (PASS, MAO, ANPAA).
