Symptomatic diagnoses in primary care: an observational cohort study

Area of Science:

• Primary Health Care Research
• Medical Diagnosis
• Public Health

Background:

• Definitive diagnoses are not always possible for primary health care patients.
• Symptomatic diagnoses are frequently utilized in such cases.

Purpose of the Study:

• To determine the proportion of symptomatic diagnoses in primary care.
• To identify the most common symptomatic diagnoses.
• To analyze the distribution of these diagnoses by age and sex.

Main Methods:

• A register-based study was conducted using electronic health records from Vantaa, Finland.
• Diagnoses were classified using the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10).
• Data spanned from January 1, 2016, to December 31, 2018, analyzing all recorded diagnoses (n=503,001).

Main Results:

• Symptomatic diagnoses (R-codes) constituted 13.5% (n=67,905) of all recorded diagnoses.
• The most prevalent were digestive/abdominal (3.7%), circulatory/respiratory (3.5%), general (3.0%), and skin/subcutaneous tissue (2.0%) symptoms.
• Symptomatic diagnoses were more common in women (14.1%) than men (12.4%), with specific patterns varying by symptom category and sex.

Conclusions:

• Approximately one-eighth of general practitioner appointments involved a symptomatic diagnosis code.
• Significant sex-based differences were observed in the prevalence of symptomatic diagnoses.