Types of morbidity and categories of patients in a Swedish county. Applying the Johns Hopkins Adjusted Clinical Groups System to encounter data in primary health care.
OBJECTIVE
To elucidate types of morbidity and categories of patients in a large population.


METHODS
A one-year retrospective study of encounter data from electronic patient record databases in primary health care, with application of the Johns Hopkins Adjusted Clinical Groups System.


METHODS
Blekinge County Council, southeastern Sweden, with 149 552 inhabitants.


METHODS
All patients with a diagnosis-registered encounter with a GP in 2002 at 13 publicly managed PHC centres.


METHODS
Anonymous identification number, age, gender, type of morbidity (Aggregated Diagnostic Groups), and category of patient (Adjusted Clinical Groups).


RESULTS
About 45% of the county's inhabitants had at least one diagnosis-registered encounter with a GP during the year. The most common types of morbidity were "time limited" (24.0% of all types), "likely to recur" (19.6%), and "signs/symptoms" (19.0%). About 33.3% of all patients had one and only one time-limited condition, about 16.8% had one and only one recurring condition, and about 12.1% of the patients had only a chronic condition.


CONCLUSIONS
Types of morbidity in primary health care are dominated by nearly equal proportions of "time limited", "likely to recur", "chronic", and "signs/symptoms". The predominant categories of patients are those with only one type of morbidity, while about one-third of the patients had a constellation of two or more types of morbidity during a one-year period.
Carlsson
Lennart
L
Center for Family Medicine Stockholm, Department of Clinical Science, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden. lennart.carlsson@smd.sll.se
Strender
Lars-Erik
LE
Fridh
Gerd
G
Nilsson
Gunnar
G
D002908:Chronic Disease / Q000453:epidemiology*; D015897:Comorbidity; D003953:Diagnosis-Related Groups; D006801:Humans; D008499:Medical Records; D009017:Morbidity; D010045:Outpatients / Q000145:classification* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D015995:Prevalence; D011320:Primary Health Care / Q000458:organization & administration / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D013548:Sweden / Q000453:epidemiology