Comparison of the Five Danish Regions Regarding Demographic Characteristics, Healthcare Utilization, and Medication Use—A Descriptive Cross-Sectional Study

Abstract

BackgroundWhile Denmark is well known for its plethora of registers. Many studies are conducted on research databases that only cover parts of Denmark, and regional differences could potentially threaten these studies’ external validity. The aim of this study was to assess sociodemographic and health related homogeneity of the five Danish regions.MethodsWe obtained descriptive data for the five Danish regions, using publicly available data sources: Statbank Denmark, the Danish Ministry of Economic Affairs, and Medstat.dk. These data sources comprise aggregate data from four different nationwide registers: The Danish National Patient Register, The Danish Civil Registration System, The Danish Register of Medicinal Product Statistics, and The Danish National Health Service Register for Primary Care. We compared the Danish regions regarding demographic and socioeconomic characteristics, health care utilization, and use of medication. For each characteristic, one-year prevalence was obtained and analyses were performed for 2013 and 2008 to account for possible change over time.ResultsIn 2013, 5,602,628 persons were living in Denmark. The mean age was 40.7 years in the entire Danish population and ranged between 39.6 to 42.4 years in the five regions (coefficient of variation between regions [CV] = 0.028). The proportion of women in Denmark was 50.4% (CV = 0.009). The proportion of residents with low education level was 28.7% (CV = 0.051). The annual number of GP contacts was 7.1 (range: 6.7–7.4, CV = 0.040), and 114 per 1,000 residents were admitted to the hospital (range: 101–131, CV = 0.107). The annual number of persons redeeming a prescription of any medication was 723 per 1,000 residents (range: 718–743, CV = 0.016). Analyses for 2008 showed comparable levels of homogeneity as for 2013.ConclusionsWe found substantial homogeneity between all of the five Danish regions with regard to sociodemographic and health related characteristics. Epidemiologic studies conducted on regional subsets of Danish citizens have a high degree of generalizability.

Positive predictive value of cardiovascular diagnoses in the Danish National Patient Registry: a validation study

“…However, our results are most likely generalisable to other parts of the country as the Danish healthcare system is homogeneous in structure and practice. 9 Although some diagnoses (eg, myocardial infarction) have shown consistently high validity across countries despite different registry types and coding systems, 6 12 25 it should be noted that our findings may not per se be generalisable to all countries where coding systems, coding practice, disease definitions and diagnostics differ.…”

“…9 Each region typically has one major university hospital (including a high volume cardiac centre) and several smaller regional hospitals. The Danish National Health Service provides free universal tax-supported healthcare, guaranteeing unfettered access to general practitioners and hospitals.…”

Positive predictive value of cardiac examination, procedure and surgery codes in the Danish National Patient Registry: a population-based validation study

“…It was restricted to one out of five Danish regions. However, the homogeneity of the Danish healthcare system makes it likely that our results also apply to other Danish regions 7. Our results may not necessarily be applicable to other countries, other healthcare systems or earlier study periods 3.…”

“…Cardiac surgeries have been recorded in the DNPR according to the Nordic Medico-statistical Committee's Classification of Surgical Procedures (NOMESCO) since 1996 3. Denmark is divided into five regions, which each are representative of the Danish population with respect to demographic, and socioeconomic characteristics as well as healthcare usage and medication use 7. Each region typically has one major university hospital (including a high volume cardiac intervention centre) and several smaller regional hospitals (performing some, but not all cardiac interventions).…”

“…Specifically, we sampled from the region's university hospital (Aarhus University Hospital) and from two larger regional hospitals (Regional Hospital of Randers and Regional Hospital of Herning). Given the homogeneity of the Danish healthcare system, we considered these hospitals representative for hospitals of similar size in other Danish regions 7. Patients were sampled from the departments of cardiology, internal medicine, acute medicine, neurology and cardiothoracic surgery.…”