sairaustapahtumaa

Sairaustapahtumaa is a term used in Finnish health reporting to denote a single incident of illness typically used as a unit of observation in clinical records and public health surveillance. It can refer to an individual episode, such as onset of fever and gastroenteritis, or to a defined outbreak where several cases are linked by time and place. The concept differs from chronic conditions or long-term disabilities, focusing on discrete illness occurrences and their immediate health consequences.

Data and applications: Typical data elements include onset date, diagnosis or suspected diagnosis, symptoms, severity, care setting, outcome, and location. These events are collected in health information systems, linked to demographic data, and used for outbreak detection, trend analysis, and burden of illness estimation. Limitations include underreporting, reporting delays, misclassification, and privacy concerns. The term is primarily used in Finnish-language health reporting; translations vary, and in international literature similar concepts may be described as illness episode, case, or incident. Examples: a patient with acute respiratory infection on a specific date constitutes a sairaustapahtumaa; an outbreak of gastroenteritis with several linked cases is a cluster of sairaustapahtumia.