Discussion
The purpose of this study was to develop profiles based on both total and diabetes-related primary healthcare utilisation and to investigate the association between profiles of total healthcare utilisation and diabetes-related utilisation. For both diabetes and total primary healthcare utilisation, three clearly distinct profiles were found with regard to the type of contacts and type of healthcare provider (GP or primary care nurse). Patient and disease characteristics were, however, not always associated with the membership of each profile. Age and type of medication – no medication, oral medication or oral medication and insulin – were the strongest indicators for diabetes-related primary healthcare profiles. Diabetes patients with a high total healthcare utilisation (profile ‘high utilisation’), were not always patients with a high utilisation pattern for diabetes (‘high utilisation, GP and nurse’), whereas having a low total healthcare utilisation profiles was associated with a low contact rate for diabetes.