Distribution of Doctor's Consultations, Operations, and Symptoms with Special Relevance to Social Factors

Abstract

In 1968 6074 Swedes representing a nation-wide random sample of the adult population 15–75 years old were interviewed as to their standard of living. Questions were put on 47 specified symptoms and other medical data such as previous operations and number of doctor's consultations 12 months prior to the interview. There was a female dominance in nearly every category as to number of visits. However, females reported 38–57% more symptoms per visit than did males. It is concluded that there is a substantial reserve of unmet demand for medical care among females. Sex-specific symptoms such as menstrual distress did not significantly influence the conclusions. Lower social class seems to be underrepresented in doctor's consultations when their higher symptom level and morbidity are taken into account. For appendectomy and tonsillectomy high social class was overrepresented by 1.6 and 2.4 times, respectively. The ten most common symptoms were analysed against number of doctor's consultations. It was found that for males, nervous symptoms gradually became more common with increasing number of visits. This could not be established for females, where nervous symptoms were equally common irrespective of the number of doctor's consultations.