Morbidity Trends Registered in Croatian Family Practice in the Period 1995–2012

Abstract

Monitoring changes and trend of morbidity is important to develop strategies and health care policies. Therefore, this study was undertaken with the main aims to investigate the overall morbidity trends recorded in Croatian family practice (FP) in period 1995 – 2012. The data were collected from the Croatian Health Service Yearbooks, 1995 to 2012. Obtained results clearly indicated that the number of patients, annually visiting FP was relatively stable while the number of diagnoses continuously increased, with average 2.1 diagnoses per patients in 1995 to 3.7 diagnoses in 2012. The most often registered are the groups of respiratory, cardiovascular and musculoskeletal diseases. Although all ICD-groups of diseases recorded an increase, some groups have more prominent increase: R diagnoses (symptoms and sings), C diagnoses (malignant), E diagnoses (endocrine and metabolic) and Z diagnoses (other reasons for FP encounter). For deeper understanding of the changes in the particular diagnoses the future research is needed.