Definición y validación de indicadores de calidad de la prescripción en atención primaria

Abstract

Objective. To define and validate a battery of prescription indicators on the use of anti-hypertensives, lipid-lowerers, diabetes drugs, and insulin, as measurements of family doctors' quality of prescription in primary health care. Design. Transversal, descriptive study. Setting. Two primary care health districts, Camas and Sierra Norte, Spain. Participants. Eighty three family doctors, 94.32% of the doctors in the study area. Definition and validation of indicators. To construct the prescription indicators, we used evidence found in the scientific bibliography available. To validate it, we analysed its statistical relationship with a series of selected clinical tests, collected from the clinical records. Results. For each doctor, there was a statistically significant relationship between the index of quality of prescription and the clinical quality seen in the records (P=.004). The variables of age, sex, and training fine-tuned the model. Conclusions. There is a statistically significant relationship between a good prescription indicator and proper control of intermediate health variables.