Statistical presentation

Data description

The statistics cover stays at public and private somatic and psychiatric hospital wards within one calendar year. The statistics are based on the National Patient Register from the Danish Health Data Authority combined with a number of background details from other registers. The statistics show e.g. how the use of hospitals varies with a range of sociodemographic factors such as residence, sex, age, educational level, labour market affiliation and relatives. The statistics also show how hospital stays are distributed according to main diagnosis group.

Classification system

The following groups and classifications are applied in connection with publication of the Hospital Utilisation statistics:

• In the StatBank table SBR01: Age, sex, and municipality of residence are extracted from the Population Register at the end of the given year.

• In the StatBank tables SBR02–08: Age is determined at the end of the given year based on the date of birth derived at the time of pseudonymisation of the CPR from LPR data.

• Sex is determined during pseudonymisation from the most recently registered CPR in the LPR data for the given year.

• Hospital service type (somatics - psychiatrics - both somatics and psychiatrics).

Somatics: A hospital stay is ‘somatic’ if all the contacts included in the stay are ‘somatic’. If a contact is ‘somatic’, it is not ‘psychiatric’. A contact is ‘psychiatric’ if the primary diagnosis begins with DF (mental and behavioural disorders) or if the contact manager’s speciality is ‘psychiatry’ or ‘child and adolescent psychiatry’.

Psychiatrics: A hospital stay is classified as ‘psychiatric’ if all the contacts included in the stay are ‘psychiatric’. A contact is ‘psychiatric’ if the primary diagnosis begins with DF (mental and behavioural disorders) or if the contact manager’s speciality is ‘psychiatry’ or ‘child and adolescent psychiatry’. If a contact is not ‘psychiatric’, it is ‘somatic’.

Both somatics and psychiatrics: A hospital stay is considered both somatic and psychiatric if it involves both ‘psychiatric’ and ‘somatic’ contacts.

• Hospital type (public hospital - private hospital - both public and private hospital)

• Labour market affiliation is taken as of 31 December of the previous year from the Labour Classification Module. It is broken down into: Employed - Unemployed - Long-term sick leave, vocational rehabilitation, etc. - Disability pensioner - Oldage pensioner - Students, persons under 15 years and others

• Highest completed education is taken as of 30 September of the previous year from the Education Register. It is grouped according to the DDU format: Primary school - Upper secondary education - Vocational education and training - Short-cycle higher education - Medium-cycle higher education - Long-cycle higher education - PhD or equivalent - Unknown educational level

• Ancestry is taken from the Population Register at the end of the given year. Broken down into: persons of Danish origin - immigrants - descendants - unknowns.

Persons of Danish origin: Persons who has at least one parent who is a Danish citizen, and who are born in Denmark.

Immigrants: An immigrant is a person who is born abroad, and where neither parent is both a Danish citizen and born in Denmark. If there is no information about either parent and the person is born abroad, they are registered as an immigrant.

Descendants: A descendant is a person who is born in Denmark, and where neither parent is both a Danish citizen and born in Denmark. If there is no information about either parent and the person is a foreign national, they are also considered a descendant. If at least one parent is born in Denmark and acquires Danish citizenship, the person will subsequently be registered as being of Danish origin.

• Relatives (has a partner and no other relatives - has a partner and other relatives - has no partner but has other relatives - has neither a partner nor other relatives). For further information on the definition of a partner, see the documentation of statistics on Relatives.

Partner: Partner is defined according to the definition in e-family type. See the TIMES variabel RELATION_PARTNER (In Danish).

Relative: A relative is a partner, half-sibling, full sibling, parent, grandparent, child, son-in-law or daughter-in-law, or grandchild of another person in the population. Partners and sons-in-law and daughters-in-law are identified using information such as a shared address. The other family relationships are identified solely on the basis of information on parent-child links in the CPR register.

• Diagnosis (the primary diagnosis linked to the last contact of the stay) is grouped based on the 21 main diagnosis groups in the Danish version of the ICD (International Classification of Diseases), see The SKS browser. The 21 groups reflect the main ICD-10 chapters or primary diagnostic groupings. Certain historical, discontinued diagnoses cannot be classified using the current main chapters and have therefore been grouped manually. Diagnoses beginning with "DV" or "DU" are placed under Chapter 15. However, this does not apply to diagnoses that can only be recorded as secondary diagnoses ("DVR"), which therefore do not belong to a primary diagnostic group. These stays have been categorized as main diagnosis group Unknown/other. In data collected through LPR2 (2017-2019), stays where no last contact has been recorded exist. The end time of these stays has been defined by the end of a procedure instead. As procedures do not have primary diagnosis recorded, these stays have been recorded as having Unknown/other main diagnosis group.

Further information on the variables of the statistics can be found on Statistics Denmark’s website (in Danish only).

Sector coverage

Public and private somatic and psychiatric hospital wards.

Statistical concepts and definitions

Hospital stay: One or more contacts involving physical attendance by a person at one or more hospitals or healthcare institutions. A contact may, for example, be a consultation, examination, admission or similar. Multiple contacts are considered part of the same hospital stay if no more than four hours pass between the end of one contact and the beginning of the next.

Relative: A relative is a partner, half or full sibling, parent, grandparent, child, child-in-law or grandchild. Partners and children-in-law are identified using information such as shared address. The other relative relations are identified solely using parent-child linkages in the Danish Civil Registration System (CPR).

Statistical unit

• Persons

• Stays

Statistical population

The population's stays at public and/or private somatic and psychiatric wards.

Reference area

Denmark

Time coverage

2017 - 2025

Base period

Not relevant for these statistics.

Unit of measure

Number of hospital stays or of people using hospital services.

Reference period

The reference time is the calendar year in which the hospital stay took place. Stays that commenced prior to the year in question are included, if they ended in that year or at a later date.

Frequency of dissemination

Annually.

Legal acts and other agreements

Section 6 of the act on Statistics Denmark, cf. consolidating act no. 610 of 30 May 2008. There is no EU regulation concerning the Hospital Utilization Statistics.

Cost and burden

The statistics are based on administrative registers. There is therefore no direct reporting burden in connection with the calculation of these statistics.

Comment

Further information is available at: Statistics Denmark or by contacting Statistics Denmark.