Incidence and Variability of Temporary Disability Due to Anxiety Disordersduring 2009 in the Valencia Community, Spain

Abstract

Background: Anxiety, dissociative and somatoform disorders (WHO-Code 300) are the second cause of Temporary Disability (TD) in Spain. This is the main reason that justifies the analysis of the variability among primary health care centers (PHC) of the Valencian Community in the prescription processes of Temporary Disability for these disorders. Methods: Epidemiological cross-sectional descriptive study of variability of TD processes initiated in 2009 corresponding to diagnosis code 300 in 739 PHC from 23 health districts in the Valencian Community, where 25,859 TD processes for the diagnosis code 300 were prescribed. Traditional indicators of variation developed for the analysis of small areas were used to determine variability in the incidence rate ofTD processes. The analysis of variance was used to determine the percentage of explanation of the factors studied. Results: The average incidence rate obtained was of 1.08 for 100 individuals. The variation range was between 0.01 and 1.97 for percentiles P5 to P95. In the variance components analysis, the factor of health district explains the highest percentage of variability (22.12), followed by the factor province (20.21%), coastal areas (4.65%), teaching accreditation (2.44%) and the size of population assigned to each PHC (2.40%). Conclusions: Significant differences were observed in the incidence rate of TD processes for the diagnosis code 300. The PHCs with greater population pressure and those that are accredited had the highest rates of incidence.