[Usefulness of a morbidity registry for service planning and assessment of quality of care].

Background: Objective. 1. To know the primary and secondary chief complaints. 2. To obtain health problems incidence and prevalence rates of the population attended. 3. To evaluate the usefulness of a selective morbidity registry, of certain complaints in order to elaborate assistance quality indicators.

Methods:

Design: Descriptive cross-sectional study. Site: Health urban center (Nazaret, Valencia) for primary assistance.

Participants: Randomized sample of patients attended during a year (n = 2898). Age, sex and case history number were recorded as well as whether the complaint was chief, secondary, new or known.

Results: Among all the problems recorded, the bureaucratic ones (prescriptions) accounted for 11.6% (IC95%: 4.3 +/- 12.8), working disability certificates due to health being 5.1% (IC95%: 4.3 +/- 5.9). Among the patients attended there was an incidence rate of 10(5) year patients in the acute respiratory infections of 12584.3, acute bronchitis was 2516.8 showing the highest prevalence those regarding administrative sources and attention of chronic pathologies.

Conclusions: A morbidity record with the characteristics mentioned leads to the knowledge of the problems of the population attended and to assess some aspects of assistance quality (disease cases avoidable by vaccine, assistance administrative charge, health training activities during the consult ...), especially when these sampling are performed periodically.