The Sichuan earthquake on 12 May 2008 with a magnitude of 8.0 killed > 87,000 people. The response of the Hong Kong Red Cross (HKRC) included a basic healthcare team to a small rural town called Yanmen three weeks after the earthquake. The objective of this study was to review HKRC's medical records to identify the disease pattern in the Chinese rural setting post earthquake.

A cross-sectional, record-based study of all patients treated by the HKRC basic healthcare team from 01 June to 19 June 2008. This retrospective study studied the medical records collected during the clinical consultations, and descriptive analysis was performed for the demographic and clinical information. Blood pressure measurement was classified according to the JNC-7 classification, and the age- and gender-specific prevalence of hypertension was sought.

A total of 2,034 cases were seen during the 19-day period with daily attendance ranging from 73 to 153 cases. Musculoskeletal, respiratory, and gastrointestinal problems were the top three categories and accounted for 30.4, 17.4, and 12.7% respectively. Trauma accounted for 5.4% of the cases attended, and 26.0% of the injuries were related to the earthquake. A total of 38.7% of the consultations were for medical problems that existed before the earthquake. A total of 43.4% patients with blood pressure measurements were above the recognized cutoff for hypertension.

Due to the impact and time phase post disaster, trauma, and injuries directly resulting from the earthquake did not contribute to a large number of cases. However, the management of chronic illness was an important issue, especially with the excessive prevalence of high blood pressure found in this study. Further studies to investigate the relationship between chronic diseases including hypertension and post-earthquake conditions are needed.