Authors' objectives: It is important to measure the quality of prevention and chronic management activities, as well as cancer screening programs (secondary prevention) that are carried out in Prime Care (PC) to improve patients' quality of life and systems' efficiency. Composite indicators are an easy way to compare systems and to value processes and actuation to achieve clinic goals. That is why in this study three composite indicators are developed to measure quality in procedures related to prevention activities in PC and their comparison between seven European countries. Design, analysis and comparison of three different composite indicators that measure the appropriateness of the prevention procedures carried out in PC centres in Europe. Application of these composite indicators for the comparative analysis of the international recommendations' follow-up in relation with prevention activities carried out from PC centres in Europe. This study is part of the EUprimecare project.

Authors' recommendations: 1) Composite indicators, independently of the methodology used for their construction, are a way of measuring processes in PC. They are useful to interpret a great amount of variables, as they allow us to generate a unique measure and to establish rankings to compare different systems. Their design has to contribute to informed decision making and to have certain politics relevance. 2) In the three composite indicators, in chronic management Finland and Spain are at the top, while in cancer screening Italy and Finland come first. The best results in global averages are obtained by: Finland and Spain in arithmetic means, while in budget allocation and PCA weighted averages Italy and Finland are the best. The country that is more times the first or the second of the ranking is Finland. On the other hand, in the three indicators, the worst results in cancer screening and global averages are obtained by Estonia. While in chronic management Lithuania is the worst in arithmetic means and budget allocation weighted averages and Hungary in PCA weighted averages.

Project Status: Completed

Year Published: 2014

URL for published report: http://gesdoc.isciii.es/gesdoccontroller?action=download&id=19/09/2014-759b764a6b

English language abstract: An English language summary is available

Publication Type: Not Assigned

Country: Spain

Organisation Name: Agencia de Evaluacion de Tecnologias Sanitarias

Contact Address: Instituto de Salud "Carlos III", Calle Sinesio Delgado 6, Pabellon 4, 28029 Madrid, Spain. Tel: +34 9 1 822 2005; Fax: +34 9 1 387 7841;

Contact Name: Luis M. Sánchez Gómez

Contact Email: luism.sanchez@isciii.es

Copyright: Agencia de Evaluacion de Tecnologias Sanitarias (AETS)