[Variation in the number of clinical chemical analyses requested by primary health care].

The number of clinical chemical tests requested by the primary health care sector in one year was registered in ten municipalities. Considerable inter-municipality variation was found. Some variation in test requesting could be explained by differences in number of inhabitants per general practitioner. The request for tests increased with decreasing number of inhabitants per general practitioner. No statistically significant correlation was found between number of tests and morbidity in the case of two conditions where the use of tests is well defined. Most of the variation was unexplained, indicating a problem of quality connected to the use of clinical chemical tests.