A COMPARISON OF MORBIDITY PATTERNS IN PUBLIC AND PRIVATE PRIMARY CARE CLINICS IN MALAYSIA

Objectives: To compare the morbidity patterns in public and private primary care clinics; determine patients’ reasons forencounter (RFE) and diagnoses using the ICPC-2, and compare ten commonest diagnoses and RFEs.Methods: A cross-sectional study on randomly selected clinics was conducted nationwide. Doctors completed the PatientEncounter Record (PER) for systematically selected encounters for a week.Results: Response rate was 82.0% (public clinic) and 33% (private clinic) with 4262 encounters and 7280 RFE. Overall, thethree commonest disease categories encountered were respiratory (37.2%), general and unspecified (29.5%), and cardiovasculardiseases (22.2%). Public and private clinics handled 27% versus 50% acute cases and 20.0% versus 3.1% chronic cases i.e.33.7 and 5.6 chronic diseases per 100 RFE respectively.Conclusion: Doctors in public clinics saw more chronic and complex diseases as well as pregnancy related complaints andfollow-up cases while in private clinics more acute and minor illnesses were seen. Health services should be integrated andsupport given to co-manage chronic diseases in both sectors.