The Traralgon Health and Illness Survey: Part 3. Illnesses and their Medical and Hospital Care

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Abstract
An interview survey with 371 randomly selected families provided information about 2,603 illnesses and was supplemented by information about diseases from a random sample of general practitioner consultations and by details of all conditions responsible for hospital admissions in the study population during a one-year period. Most (59 per cent) illnesses reported were chronic but inactive, 8 per cent were chronic and active, and 33 per cent were acute. Doctor-prescribed medication was being taken for 25 per cent of illnesses, and self-prescribed medication for 24 per cent. The nature of the illnesses reported, the proportion of different classes receiving medical treatment, and the effect of age and sex are discussed. The nature of diseases recorded in the concurrent survey of general practice attendances and hospital admissions and their relationship to illnesses reported from the interview survey and to each other are discussed. Only 13 per cent of all new episodes of illness are presented for medical attention, although this includes a majority of conditions related to pregnancy and to the cardiovascular system. New conditions are seen at 51 per cent of general practice consultations; only 6.6 per cent of these require hospital admission. The spectrum of diseases requiring hospital admission is not greatly different from that responsible for general practice attendances. The prevalence of a number of chronic illnesses per 1,000 population (rheumatism and arthritis 105, backache and sciatica 98, migraine 70, asthma 37, hypertension 34, epilepsy 6, diabetes 5) and other results are compared with a number of other community surveys.

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