Quality of primary health care in Poland from the perspective of the physicians providing it

BMC Family Practice

Research Article

Anna Krztoń-Królewiecka¹  Marek Oleszczyk¹  Adam Windak¹  Willemijn LA Schäfer²  Wienke GW Boerma² 

[1] Department of Family Medicine, Chair of the Department of Internal Medicine and Gerontology, Jagiellonian University Medical College, 4 Bochenska Street, 31 061, Krakow, Poland;NIVEL, Netherlands Institute for Health Services Research, PO Box 1568, 3500 BN, Utrecht, Netherlands;

关键词: Primary care;    General practice;    Quality of care;    Health policy;    Health services research;   

DOI  :  10.1186/s12875-016-0550-8

 received in 2016-04-05, accepted in 2016-10-21,  发布年份 2016

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundPrimary care (PC) allows patients to address most of their health needs and is essential for high quality healthcare systems. The aim of the study was to analyze the insight of nine core dimensions of Polish PC system: “Economic conditions”, “Workforce”, “Accessibility”, “Comprehensiveness”, “Continuity”, “Coordination”, “Quality of care”, “Efficiency” and “Equity” and to identify the characteristics of the providing physicians that influence their perception of the quality of care.MethodsA cross-sectional study was conducted as part of an international QUALICOPC project. In Poland a nationally representative sample of 220 PC physicians was selected from the database of Polish National Health Fund by a stratified random sampling procedure. The research tool was a standardized 64-item questionnaire. Each of the respondents’ answers were assigned a numerical value ranging from−1 (extremely negative) to +1 (extremely positive). The quality indicators were calculated as an arithmetic mean of variables representing particular PC dimensions.ResultsThe mean scores for the majority of the dimensions had negative values. Accessibility of care was perceived as the best dimension, while the economic conditions were evaluated most negatively. Only a small part of variation in quality evaluation could be explained by physicians’ characteristics.ConclusionsThe negative evaluation of primary care reflects the growing crisis in the health care system in Poland. There is an urgent need to apply complex recovery measures to improve the quality of primary care.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© The Author(s). 2016