Morbidity of insured Swedish cats between 2011 and 2016: Comparing disease risk in domestic crosses and purebreds.

Abstract

Sources of population-based cat health information are scarce. The objective of this study was to determine disease frequency in cats using pet insurance data to inform health promotion efforts. A descriptive analysis of cats insured with Agria Pet Insurance in Sweden (2011-2016) was performed. Incidence rates of broad disease categories were calculated based on veterinary care events and an exact denominator consisting of cat-years-at-risk. Rate ratios were calculated, comparing domestic crosses to all purebreds and specific purebreds to all other purebreds combined. The study included over 1.6 million cat-years-at-risk (78.5% were domestic crosses), 18 breeds and 24 disease categories. The most common disease categories causing morbidity in purebreds were digestive, whole body, injury, urinary lower, skin and female reproduction. Purebreds had the highest relative risk (compared to domestics crosses) in the female reproduction, heart, operation complication, respiratory lower and immunological disease categories. There are typical limitations of secondary data, but they do not negate the overall value of such a large dataset. This study demonstrates how pet insurance data can be used to find breed-specific differences in the incidence of various disease categories in cats. This may be of importance for breeders, cat owners, veterinarians and researchers.