General practitioner utilization by age, sex and disease in Norway from 2012–2023: a national health registry study

METHOD: Register-based population-wide repeated cross-sectional study. Data from the Norwegian Control and Distribution of Health Reimbursement (KUHR) database, linked to data from the Norwegian Population Registry. PARTICIPANTS: All Norwegians alive and living in the country each year from 2012 to 2023. The population grew from 4,985,870 in 2012 to 5,488,984 persons in 2023 during this period. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE: The average annual number of general practitioner consultations per inhabitant in primary healthcare. RESULTS: The average number of yearly General Practitioner (GP) visits per inhabitant increased from 3.1 to 3.6 for women and from 2.2 to 2.4 for men from 2012 to 2023. Age-specific utilization trends revealed the largest increase among 16-19-year-old women, whose GP visits rose from 2.05 to 2.99 per year. Diagnosis-specific trends highlighted a substantial increase in consultations for mental illness among women, from 0.31 to 0.46 per inhabitant, with the largest relative growth among 6-15-year-old girls (+139%). Conversely, consultations for heart disease saw the largest relative decline, particularly among women aged 67 to 79 (-68.3%) and men aged 80 to 89 (-0.94 consultations per inhabitant). CONCLUSIONS: Primary care utilization has increased over the past decade, with notable variation by age, sex, and diagnosis. The particularly strong increase in consultations for mental illness among young individuals highlight the potential for considering other medical professionals, such as specially trained nurses, to serve as the primary point of contact for young individuals with mental health challenges.