RESUMEN
AIM: To study trends of hospital morbidity among adults in the region of Monastir during a period of 12 years (1996 - 2007). METHODS: We analyzed data from the morbidity database of the university hospital of Monastir (Tunisia) between 01/01/1996 and 31/12/2007. Data were drawn from the register of hospital morbidity implemented in the Department of Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology since 1995. The International Classification of Diseases (tenth revision) was used to identify and classify morbid conditions. RESULTS: During the study period, we collected 150749 admissions with male tendency (sex-ratio = 1.27). Among these admissions 24.4% were over than 64 years. Morbid conditions were dominated by Ischemic Heart diseases (4.24%) followed by cancers and diabetes mellitus (3.3% and 2.52% respectively). Chronological trends, using Spearman correlation rank test, showed that overall rate of chronic conditions increased significantly from 4.4% in 1996 to 9.1% in 2007 (r'= |0.88|, p-value < 0.001). In contrast, the rate of infectious and parasitic diseases decreased from 4.3% to 2.9% (r'= |0.98|, p-value < 0.001). CONCLUSION: Morbidity trends reflect the epidemiological transition of our country and call to a backing of the ambulatory system and the development of specific services able to decrease the needs of hospitalizations.