Public engagement in setting healthcare priorities: a ranking exercise in Cyprus

Cost Effectiveness and Resource Allocation

Research

Eirini Agapidaki¹  Antonis Farmakas²  Evridiki Papastavrou³  Nikos Polyzos⁴  Mamas Theodorou⁵  Kyriakos Souliotis⁶  Petros Galanis⁷  Stefanos Ghobrial⁸  Georgios Karayiannis⁹ 

[1]Centre for Health Services Research, Department of Hygiene, Epidemiology and Medical Statistics, Medical School, University of Athens, 25 Alexandroupoleos st., Athens, Greece

[2]Department of Life and Health Sciences, University of Nicosia, Nicosia, Cyprus

[3]Department of Nursing, Cyprus University of Technology, Limassol, Cyprus

[4]Department of Social Administration and Political Science, Democritus University of Thrace, Komotini, Greece

[5]Faculty of Economics and Management, Open University of Cyprus, Nicosia, Cyprus

[6]Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, University of Peloponnese, Corinth, Greece

[7]Research Associate Center for Health Services Management and Evaluation, Faculty of Nursing, University of Athens, Athens, Greece

[8]School of Medicine, East Anglia University, Norwich, UK

[9]University of Nicosia, Nicosia, Cyprus

关键词: Public participation;    Healthcare priority setting;    Resources allocation;    Health policy;   

DOI  :  10.1186/s12962-017-0078-3

 received in 2017-02-09, accepted in 2017-08-02,  发布年份 2017

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundIn countries such as Cyprus the financial crisis and the recession have severely affected the funding and priority setting of the health care system. There is evidence highlighting the importance of population’ preferences in designing priorities for health care settings. Although public preferences have been thorough analysed in many countries, there is a research gap in terms of simultaneously investigating the relative importance and the weight of differing and competing criteria for determining healthcare priority settings. The main objective of the study was tο investigate public preferences for the relative utility and weight of differing and competing criteria for health care priority setting in Cyprus.MethodsThe ‘conjoint analysis’ technique was applied to develop a ranking exercise. The aim of the study was to identify the preferences of the participants for alternative options. Participants were asked to grade in a priority order 16 hypothetical case scenarios of patients with different disease and of diverse socio-economic characteristics awaiting treatment. The sample was purposive and consisted of 100 Cypriots, selected from public locations all over the country.ResultsIt was revealed that the “severity of the disease” and the “age of the patient” were the key prioritization criteria. Participants assigned the smallest relative value to the criterion “healthy lifestyle”. More precisely, participants older than 35 years old assigned higher relative importance to “age”, while younger participants to the “severity of the disease”. The “healthy lifestyle” criterion was assigned to the lowest relative importance to by all participants.ConclusionIn Cyprus, public participation in health care priority setting is almost inexistent. Nonetheless, it seems that the public’s participation in this process could lead to a wider acceptance of the healthcare system especially as a result of the financial crisis and the upcoming reforms implemented such as the establishment of the General System of Health Insurance.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© The Author(s) 2017