Background
: spite of a variety of papers on clinical contents in primary helth center of family medicine according to ICPC coding system, they are mainly limited to the metropolitan or urban areas. This paper is, therefore, expected to provide data for fesidency training as well as for a reference to family physicians who are to serve for primary health care of rural community by analyzing clinical contents of new patients in a rural area according to ICPC coding system. Also this paper, We hope, will give a brief idea of present status of the public health centers in rural areas.

Methods : The authors visited a Public health center operated by a doctor who had finished the course of intern training. Among 1,271 new patients in a year from Jan. 1993 to Dec. 1993, we sampled randomly 1,000 patients with an even distribution by month and by area and analyzed their medical charts.

Results : In sex ratio of the subjects of investigation, female was superior to male by 419(41.9%) to 581(58.1%) in the total of 1,000 patients. By age, fifties(50-59 yeare old) was the most common age group. The total number of Reason For Encounter(RFE) was 1,454, the average RFE per patient was 1.45, and the kind of RFEs was 122. A cough was the most common RFE by 269 cases(18.5%). Accoding to division of REF by chapter, Respiratory disease was the most common RFE by 481 cases(33.1%). The 111 kinds of diagnoses were used and Upper Respiratory Infection among them accounts for the major portion by 345 cases (27.2%). The total number of Referrals to the other hospitals was 37 cases which amounts 3.7%. Almost half of it, 18 cases(48.7%), was to the Internal Medicine Department.

Conclusion : The authors analyzed the clinical contents of a Public health center in a rural area according to ICPC coding system. It was our intention that the data in the paper could be used for residency training as well as for a reference to the family physicians who will serve for primary health care of rural community.