Quality in screening and measuring blood pressure in China's primary health care: a national cross-sectional study using unannounced standardized patients.

ABSTRACT:

Background

This study aims to evaluate primary care providers' adherence to the standard of measuring blood pressure for people aged 35 or above during their initial visit, as per Chinese guidelines, and to identify factors affecting their practices.

Methods

We developed 11 standardized patients (SP) cases as tracer conditions to evaluate primary care, and deployed trained SPs for unannounced visits to randomly selected providers in seven provinces of China. The SPs used a checklist based on guidelines to record whether and how blood pressure was measured. Data were analyzed descriptively and regression analysis was performed to examine the association between outcomes and factors such as provider, patient, facility, and clinical case characteristics.

Findings

The SPs

SUBMITTER: Zhang L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10701131 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature