Use of primary medical care: does place of residence play a role?

The present paper is based on a prospective study of the use of primary health care in the municipality of Førde in 1988. The population of about 8,300 could easily be divided into two groups: semi-urban and rural. We wanted to investigate whether there were differences in the use of primary medical care between the two groups. The empirical study showed higher total contact rates for the rural women than for the semi-urban women, and virtually no difference among the men. The semi-urban population was more apt to use direct contacts and had more frequent contacts for new health problems than the rural population. Higher age and female gender were associated with more use of all types of and all reasons for contact. In multivariate analyses, a number of interaction effects between age, sex, and place of residence were demonstrated.