Trends in general practitioners/family doctors workload in Croatia in period 1995-2012

This research aimed to present public data describing the Croatian family doctors (FDs) workload, presented as the average number of patients on the lists, and annual and daily number of consultations per one FD team during the period 1995-2012. Croatian Health Service Yearbook for consecutive years was used as basis for data collection. Impressive increase number of persons on FD lists and significant increase of rate of persons per FD team were observed. Average number of contact to FD team also showed constant increase, starting at level of 5.9 per year in 1995 and reaching 9.6 per year in 2012. However, average number of direct consultation (including physical examination) to FD showed modest increase from level of 4.1 per year in 1995 till level of 5.8 per year in 2005. The number of referrals per one visit remain stable, but the number of referrals per one direct consultation decreased. The data stress problem of discrepancy of increasing number of persons on FD lists and stagnation trend of number of FD teams in Croatian primary health care. Results suggested problem of increasing workload of FD teams, but further research are needed for deeper amylases of the FDs workload.