General morbidity surveys of the population in western countries are based on interviews, while in socialist countries general morbidity surveys are usually done by direct medical examination or by assessment of the attended morbidity, most frequently, however, a combination of both approaches is used. Neither in interviews nor in the method based on direct or indirect medical examination so far sufficient unification of methodological approaches has been achieved to compare, based on these results, the health status of the population in different countries.