Diseases in general practice: Method and first results of the Intego-network

Abstract

General practitioners who register with the medical sofware program Medidoc®, co-operated in the Intego-project. With a specially framed software program all the diagnoses were collected; next they were generated in the database program Access®. In this way it is possible to obtain great amounts of data; a reference group can also be determined. A table gives a survey of the new determined diagnoses in general practice. The incidences of the diagnoses are classified according to the international wide spread ICPC-classification. The table contains 216.960 diagnoses, made over 164.551 patiënt-years in the years 1994-1998. The most frequent diagnoses as well in male as in female patients are infectious diseases. Also the locomotive system obtains a very important place with shoulder, cervical and lumbar pathology. In female patients the occurrence of depression and hypochondriacal disorders is striking; in males the metabolic and hypertensive disorders are appearing in the top-20. This method shows the possibilities of a computerized data registration. The results presented in the manuscript are also detailed in an English version: Bartholomeeusen S, Buntinx F, De Cock L, Heyrman J. The incidence of diseases in general practice: results of the morbidity registration of the Intego-network. Leuven: Acco, 2001.