Data gender hospital discharges. Chile 1969-2019

The main source of information for this study was the Hospital Discharge Yearbooks (Anuarios de Egresos Hospitalarios) published by the Chilean Ministry of Health, available since 1962 in the institution’s historical archive. These yearbooks include all discharges from the National Health Service (SNS), disaggregated by discharge diagnoses. Since 1969, they also include discharges from outside the SNS network. The series was discontinued during the years following the 1973 military coup. Between 1974 and 1982, the only publication was from 1975. Continuous publication resumed in 1981, with the exception of 1986. Since 2001, statistics have been available through the Ministry of Health’s online repository (https://deis.minsal.cl/#tableros). For periods without available data, two specific Ministry of Health reports were used: XV Aniversario del Servicio Nacional de Salud (1968) and Estadísticas e Indicadores de Atenciones, 1978–1998 (1999). 

Definitions and Periods

Hospital Discharges (HD): The stay of a person occupying a hospital bed for observation, diagnosis, and/or medical treatment.

Discharges by Sex: HD disaggregated by the sex (male or female) of the patient. Available annually for total discharges since 1987, except for the period 1994–2000, when only the 1996 edition was published.

Discharges by Diagnosis: In cases of multiple diagnoses, classification was based on the hospitalization service, length of stay, and discharge condition. Annual data are available since 1969 for national totals, without disaggregation between SNS (hd_sns) and non-SNS (hd_extra) discharges. No disaggregation is available for the period 1972–1980, except for 1973 and 1975. Diagnoses were classified using the International Classification of Diseases (ICD) codes for Pregnancy, childbirth and the puerperium: ICD-08 until 1980 (630–678), ICD-09 until 1996 (630–679), and ICD-10 until 2019 (O00–O99).