[Incidence rate of community acquired pneumonia in a population cohort registered in BIFAP].

Objective: To estimate the incidence rate (IR) of community acquired pneumonia (CAP) using the information in the Primary Healthcare database in Spain.

Design: Retrospective study (2003-2007) using the information registered in the Database for Pharmaco-Epidemiological Research in Primary Care (BIFAP).

Study Population: Subjects aged 20 to 79 years old, were followed up until the occurrence of a pneumonia episode, death, age of 80, or the end of the study, whichever came first. CASE SELECTION: A computerised search was performed to detect suggestive cases of pneumonia using ICPC codes (International Classification of Primary Care) and free text. The computerised histories were manually reviewed in order to identify those cases fulfilling the CAP's determined definition. ANALYSE: IR of pneumonia was computed by age, sex and season. The percentage of hospitalisation was estimated. These results were compared with the IR from the United Kingdom using THIN database (The Health Improvement Network).

Results: IR of CAP was 2.69 per 1000 persons-year (IR women=2.29; IR men=3.16) with BIFAP database, and 32 % of the CAP cases were hospitalised. In United Kingdom, IR was 1.07 per 1000 persons-year (IR women=0.93; IR men=1.22) and 17% of CAP were hospitalised.

Conclusion: The BIFAP computerised Primary Care database is useful to estimate the incidence rate of CAP in Spain, as well as to compare the results with those obtained using other European computerised Primary Care databases.