Development of office-hours use of primary health centers in the early years of the 21^st century: a 13-year longitudinal follow-up study

ABSTRACT

This study, conducted in a Finnish city, examined whether a long-lasting observed trend in Finnish primary health care, namely, a decreasing rate of office-hour visits to general practitioners (GPs), would lead to reduced services for specific gender, diagnosis or age groups. This was an observational retrospective follow-up study. The annual number of visits to office-hour primary care GPs in different gender, diagnosis and age groups was recorded during a 13-year follow-up period. The effect of the decreasing visit rate on the annual mortality rate in different age and gender groups was also studied. The total number of monthly visits to office-hour GPs decreased slowly over the whole study period. This decrease was stronger in women and older people. The proportion of recorded infectious diseases (Groups A and J and especially diagnoses related to infections of respiratory airways) decreased. Proportions of recorded chronic diseases increased (Group I, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes and osteoarthrosis) during the follow-up. The annual rate of visits to office-hour GP/per GP decreased. There was a decrease in the mortality in two of the age groups (20–64, 65+ years) and no change in the youngest population (0–19 years). The decrease in the office-hours GP activity does not seem to increase mortality either.

KEYWORDS:

• Community health centres
• primary health care
• practice management
• mortality

Acknowledgments

We thank the city of Vantaa for the possibility to perform this work. Michael Horwood, PhD, reviewed the language.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Availability of data

The data are available from the authors with a reasonable request