[The health care demand in the district of Tunis]

This study aims at evaluating the morbidity of Tunis city inhabitants during the last 6 months preceding the date of the study (June 1998) and at locating the medical care points. It has been led with home interviews. The sample has been selected in a random way and is supposed to give a fair view of the whole districts of Tunis city; it includes 374 families and 1747 individuals. The socioeconomic indicators of the selected families are genuine with those of the Statistics National Institute and 88.8% of the interviewed families benefit of the welfare coverage. The mean of morbidity is of 2.6 yearly by individual and the health care is 3 yearly by individual: this includes an abstention of medical care up to 1.6% and self medication for 26.0% of individuals. The structure involved in the cares appeared respectively to be of public type in 37.5% of the cases, private in 26.5% and of a par public in 10.0%. For the urgency diseases (4.4%), patients go to the hospitals in 31% of the cases; for the less urgent diseases (23.8%) patients go to the basic welfare structures in 23% of the cases. For the needs of prevention (8.5%), patients go to the basic structures in more than half of the cases. The study indicated clear trend towards more medication of Tunis city inhabitants though it represents the 1/5 of European people. The increasing demand of Tunis city inhabitants for medical care together with the growth of the private medical structures lead to a necessary new organization of the whole medical system in Tunisia.