Publications on primary care evaluation in Spain after twenty years of reform (1984-2004). Thematic and bibliometric analysis

Abstract

In view of the widespread opinion as to the lack of data for evaluating the results of the Primary Care reform which began in Spain in 1984, the conducting of a thematic and bibliometric analysis for the published evaluation studies is posed. The documents published within the 1984-2004 time period, located by means of systematic bibliographic search both in biomedical journals and in theses, reports or books on any of the components of Primary Care included within the proposed thematic classification and referred to scopes broader than one single healthcare center. Three complimentary search strategies were used: electronic databases, manual review of indexes and reference work quote-based searches. A total of 684 documents met the criteria for inclusion: 85% having been taken from biomedical journals, 12.3% having been doctoral theses, and 2.6% reports or books. Documents were located in 49 different journals (29 foreign), Atención Primaria (52.7%) being the journal having provided the largest number of articles. A total 12.7% of the articles were published in ournals indexed in the SCI, and 8.6% in foreign journals. In 32% of the studies, the first author was working at a reformed healthcare center. Twothirds of the evaluations revolved around the analysis of the process; the topics most often evaluated having been related to healthcare spending (pharmacy), the system organization (emergencies) and professional satisfaction. Broad-based documentation is provided with evaluations of primary care in Spain. Studies have been focused more on the evaluation of the process than on that of the results. Research in this field requires including studies not published in journals (theses and reports).