Table 2.
Annual health care utilisation rates before and since breast cancer diagnosis as well as frequencies of women with any face-to-face contact, any drug prescription and any referral in both periods among women with breast cancer (n = 185) and women from the reference population (n = 548)
| Annual health care utilisation | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Before diagnosis | Since diagnosis | |||
| Patients | Ref. pop. | Patients | Ref. pop. | |
| Face-to-face contacts | ||||
| Median (range) | 2.2 (0.0–18.7) | 2.0 (0.0–32.0) | 6.0 (0.0–46.0) | 3.0 (0.0–31.7) |
| Women with any face-to-face contact, n (%) | 149 (80.5) | 428 (78.1) | 184 (99.5) | 428 (78.1) |
| Drug prescriptions | ||||
| Median (range) | 6.0 (0.0–220.0) | 6.0 (0.0–111.0) | 11.0 (0.0–212.0) | 7.0 (0–127.0) |
| Women with any drug prescription, n (%) | 156 (84.3) | 437 (79.7) | 170 (91.9) | 447 (81.6) |
| Referrals | ||||
| Median (range) | 0.0 (0.0–13.8) | 0.0 (0.0–6.9) | 1.0 (0.0–11.1) | 0.0 (0.0–7.9) |
| Women with any referral, n (%) | 53 (28.6) | 157 (28.6) | 165 (89.2) | 164 (29.9) |
All changes in utilisation rates and frequencies within patients are significant (Wilcoxon signed-rank test, p < 0.001 and McNemar Test, p < 0.01), as well as all differences in utilisation rates and frequencies in the year since diagnosis between patients and reference population (Mann–Whitney test, p < 0.001 and Chi-square test, p < 0.01)