Background:  Identification of common diseases among villagers according to disease class, age and gender can be an effective aid in training programs and higher level of decision making. The current study was aimed to assess the pattern of frequency of diseases according to international classification of diseases (ICD 10) in an adjutant rural health insurance center of Mashhad University of Medical Sciences.
Methods: In this descriptive cross-sectional study, all insured villagers visiting an adjutant rural health insurance center in Razavi Khorasan province during 2009 to 2010 who could not access their family physician and need a specialist visit were studied. The patients’ demographic data and initial diagnosis based on ICD10 classification were entered into predesigned software.
Results: In this study, 26,999 patients visited the center, of which, 15,671 (58%) were female. According to age groups, lowest number of visits was attributed to patients with 6-12 years of age (n = 835; 3%) and the highest number of visits were related patients with 60 years of age and above (6,015; 22.3%). According to ICD 10, the most frequent diseases were gastrointestinal diseases (13.7 %), musculoskeletal diseases (13.7%) and cardiovascular diseases (11.4%) and the lowest number of disease were genetic and hematologic disorders (1.2%). Among men, musculoskeletal diseases (14.4%) were the most common and gynecological disorders (0.2%) were rare. In women, gynecological diseases (18.6%) were the most frequent and accidents were the lowest number of diseases (0.9%).
Conclusion: The findings of this study indicated the need for implementation of surveillance program of non-communicable diseases, identification of risk factors of the diseases, the need for education about lifestyle and maintaining a healthy lifestyle in the rural population and reform of educational curriculum of medical students according to more common diseases.