Sammanfattning
Purpose: Investigate characteristics of persons on the waiting lists for physiotherapy in private practice, how they are prioritized and how long they wait for physiotherapy. Design: Cross-sectional study. Material: Waiting lists from 6 private practices in two municipalities. Method: The private practitioners gathered information including demography, priority and waiting times for each person on the waiting list. Results: Totally 837 persons were registered on the waiting lists. Of these were 68% women, 66% were within working age, and 88% were living or working in the municipality in which they applied for physiotherapy. The physiotherapists prioritized each person from 1-4, according to level of urgency. Seventy-three percent were given priority 1 or 2. Persons given an offer within the recommended time of waiting; Priority 1: 48%, priority 2: 25%, priority 3: 14% and priority 5:18%. Twenty-two percent of all the persons waiting for physiotherapy had to wait longer than 6 months. The persons who were waiting for psychomotor physiotherapists waited significantly longer than those who waited for other physiotherapists. Conclusions: The private physiotherapists prioritized a majority of the persons applying for physiotherapy high. In total, less than 50% were given an offer within the recommended time of waiting. The results tell us that that the local recommendations for prioritizing should be reevaluated, and that one need to look closer into what else can be done to solve the waiting list problem in private practice.