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Family Practice Advance Access originally published online on June 17, 2008
Family Practice 2008 25(4):312-317; doi:10.1093/fampra/cmn028
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© The Author 2008. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org.

The coming of age of ICPC: celebrating the 21st birthday of the International Classification of Primary Care

Jean-Karl Solera, Inge Okkesb, Maurice Woodc and Henk Lambertsb

a Visiting Professor, Institute of Postgraduate Medicine and Primary Care, Faculty of Life and Health Sciences, University of Ulster, Coleraine BT52 1SA, UK
b formerly Department of Family Medicine, Academic Medical Center, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
c formerly Department of Family Medicine, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, USA

Correspondence to Jean-Karl Soler, The Family Practice, Bay Street (Triq ir-Rand), Attard ATD 1300, Malta; Email: info{at}thefamilypractice.com.mt

Received 9 October 2007; Revised 29 March 2008; Accepted 29 April 2008.


  Abstract

The International Classification of Primary Care (ICPC) has, since its introduction in 1987, been quite successful. Now in its second revised version, it has been translated in 22 languages, accepted by the World Health Organization (WHO) as a member of the Family of International Classifications, and is being widely used both in routine daily practice and in research.

In this contribution, it is explained that ICPC was designed as a theoretical classification, and that it has especially great potential when used (1) supported by the ICPC2/ICD10 Thesaurus, (2) in sufficiently large studies to allow all classes to be observed often enough to provide reliable data, and (3) in studies based on data on episodes of care, rather than encounter data only. Under these conditions, the likelihood ratios of symptoms given a diagnosis, and of co-morbidity become available, which define the clinical content of family practice.

Keywords. ICPC, episode of care, reason for encounter, prior and posterior probabilities.

Soler J-K, Okkes I, Wood M and Lamberts H. The coming of age of ICPC: celebrating the 21st birthday of the International Classification of Primary Care. Family Practice 2008; 25: 312–317.


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