[Diagnoses in the medical house call].

8.6% of the inhabitants of a rural community called for a physician's visit to their homes during a period of 12 months. 2.9% of the population were medically attended to exclusively in their homes. Health care in the patient's home is above all provided to chronically ill, disabled and care-needing persons at old age (73.8% of all visits to the patient's homes). Almost 50% of all visits to the patient's homes are made to elderly women because of diseases of the circulatory system. Geriatric issues are predominant in health care in the patient's home. The ranking order of the diseases most frequently diagnosed in the patient's home differs from that observed in the General Practitioner's consultations. Hospitalizations resulting from visits to the patient's home have, as a rule, the nature of emergency measures. The need for a visit to a patient's home is determined more often by the patient's state of health rather than by nosologically oriented diagnoses. Medical diagnoses made in the patient's home characterize the care situation at home only to a limited degree.