| Frequent attenders in primary health care: A cross-sectional study of frequent attenders’ psychosocial and family factors, chronic diseases and reasons for encounter in a Finnish health centre | ||
|---|---|---|
| Prev | Chapter 6. Discussion | Next |
The strengths of this study lie in the setting and design. The study was a population-based cross-sectional study with an age- and sex-matched control group. Official statistics were used to determine the use of health care services by the study groups, and the definition of frequent attendance was based on the numbers of contacts with physicians found in the official statistics. The use of data from only one health centre reduced the possible confounding effect of differences in the access to health care services between health centres. Validated measures were used to assess the psychosocial and family factors of the study groups.
The first limitation of the study is the sample size and the restriction of the data to one health centre only. That limits the generalizibility of the results. Secondly, the classification of chronic diseases and reasons for encounter was based on information in the medical records. The analysis of medical records was done by the author, and some degree of subjectivity is hence inevitable.