The work by the developing primary care team in China: a survey in two cities

China is in the process of converting its existing primary care resources into general practice. The infrastructure is different from that of many other countries.

We surveyed patients' reasons for encounter (RFE) and the health providers' diagnoses in the general practice clinics of two large northern cities in order to assess the nature of the work of these practices.

Practices whose staff had a short course of training in the theory and practice of the International Classification of Primary Care (ICPC) were recruited to document the RFE and diagnoses of patient encounters in two separate winter weeks.

The practices dealt mainly with chronic illness in older patients. Hypertension-related problems were the most frequent diagnoses, followed by upper respiratory tract infection. Patients also consulted very frequently for dizziness. Overall, there was good agreement between RFE and diagnosis in some organ systems.

In their present form, the Chinese practices surveyed were delivering the full range of general practice care to a self-selected age group of patients. The ICPC was very useful for monitoring the work of general practice from the perspective of both the patients and the providers.