Perception of health and use of health care services in a Swedish primary care district. A ten year's perspective.

In a study that covered ten years a questionnaire about perceived health and use of health care services was mailed each autumn to 1/60 representative samples of the population in Sollentuna, a Swedish primary care district. The majority of respondents thought that their health was good, and only a small minority reported themselves as quite, or very sick. Those assessments were stable during the ten year period. The tendency to visit the health services increased with the degree of severity of the illness. This increase was most marked in the case of visits to emergency departments and visits by appointment at hospitals, and least in the case of visits to private doctors and company/school physicians, while visits to doctors at health centres and to district nurses occupied an intermediate position. Thus, by including a simple question about perceived health in a questionnaire designed to measure use of health care services, important information about the relations between use of health services and health conditions could be obtained.