β-Amyrin

28381224

Background
Primary health care is the cornerstone of a high quality health care system. Greece has been actively attempting to reform health care services in order to improve heath outcomes and reduce health care spending. Patient-centered approaches to health care delivery have been increasingly acknowledged for their value informing quality improvement activities. This paper reports the quality of primary health care services in Greece as perceived by patients and aspects of health care delivery that are valued by patients.

Methods
This study was conducted as part of the Quality and Costs of Primary Care in Europe (QUALICOPC) study. A cross-sectional sample of patients were recruited from general practitioner’s offices in Greece and surveyed. Patients rated five features of person-focused primary care: accessibility; continuity and coordination; comprehensiveness; patient activation; and doctor-patient communication. One tenth of the patients ranked the importance of each feature on a scale of one to four, and nine tenths of patients scored their experiences of care received. Comparisons were made between patients with and without chronic disease.

Results
The sample included 220 general practitioners from both public and private sector. A total of 1964 patients that completed the experience questionnaire and 219 patients that completed the patient values questionnaire were analyzed. Patients overall report a positive experiences with the general practice they visited. Several gaps were identified in particular in terms of wait times for appointments, general practitioner access to patient medical history, delivery of preventative services, patient involvement in decision-making. Patients with chronic disease report better experience than respondents without a chronic condition, however these patient groups report the same values in terms of qualities of the primary care system that are important to them.

Conclusions
Data gathered may be used to improve the quality of primary health care services in Greece through an increased focus on patient-centered approaches. Our study has identified several gaps as well as factors within the primary care health system that patient’s perceive as most important which can be used to prioritize quality improvement activities, especially within the austerity period. Study findings may also have application to other countries with similar context and infrastructure.

Primary care, Quality, Patient-centered care, Greece, QUALICOPC, Cross sectional

Informing primary care reform in Greece: patient expectations and experiences (the QUALICOPC study)

Christos Lionis,corresponding author1 Sophia Papadakis,1,2 Chrysanthi Tatsi,1 Antonis Bertsias,1 George Duijker,1 Prodromos-Bodosakis Mekouris,3 Wienke Boerma,4 Willemijn Schafer,4 and on behalf of the Greek QUALICOPC team

2017;

26070786

Background
The etiologies of oral disease are generally progressive and cumulative, such that compared with younger individuals, middle-aged and elderly people are at greater risk of active dental caries and periodontal disease risk. They usually suffer from multiple oral diseases, and obstacles to their use of dental care services are numerous.

Objectives
The objectives of this study were to investigate the characteristics of dental care-seeking behaviors and related sociodemographic factors in a middle-aged and elderly population in northeast China.

Methods
This was a cross-sectional study of 1188 subjects, including 792 middle-aged (35-44 years-old) and 396 elderly (65-74 years-old) residents of northeast China. Information on dental care-seeking behaviors and sociodemographic characteristics was collected during face-to-face structured interviews conducted between May and June 2010. Chi square tests, Ridit scoring, and multivariate logistic regression analysis were employed to characterize dental care-seeking behaviors and their associations with sociodemographic factors.

Results
A greater proportion of middle-aged participants reported a need for dental visits compared with the elderly participants (75.8 % vs. 60.9 %; P < 0.01), as did more urban that rural residents (P < 0.05). The majority of individuals in both the middle-aged and elderly groups obtained for dental care at their own expense, and they predominantly chose private dental clinics. Ridit analyses showed that education level and income were significantly associated with oral care in both middle-aged and elderly people (Ps < 0.05). In addition, logistic regression analysis indicated that rural residence was negatively associated with dental visits in both middle-aged (odds ratio = 0.649, 95 % confidence interval: 0.447-0.884) and elderly (odds ratio = 0.604, 95 % confidence interval: 0.394-0.924) individuals. Conclusion The rate of dental care visits is low in the middle-aged and elderly populations of northeast China. Among sociodemographic factors, education level and income are positively associated with dental care visits, and rural residence is negatively associated with the frequency of such visits.

Dental care-seeking behavior, Northeast China, Sociodemographic factors

Characteristics of dental care-seeking behavior and related sociodemographic factors in a middle-aged and elderly population in northeast China

Lu Liu, Ying Zhang,corresponding author Wei Wu, and Ruibo Cheng

2015;