Objective: To determine the prevalence and characteristics of plant-based patterns in the Spanish population and assess their potential impact on individuals with similar socio-demographic backgrounds.
Design: We estimated vegetarian and vegan individuals' national and regional prevalence and analysed their socio-demographic characteristics and weekly dietary intake patterns. Individuals with a plant-based dietary pattern were matched to a control group (1:4) with similar socio-demographic characteristics.
Objective: The general population's interest in cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) remains largely unknown. Fewer than one-third of individuals are familiar with CPR, and there are no comprehensive training programs available. This study aimed to examine CPR interest among patients visited in the primary care setting, design a new program, and assess the feasibility and efficacy of the training initiative.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Limited social connection among older adults poses a global public health challenge, reducing sources of support and affecting health and well-being. National public health strategies that leverage local intersectoral collaboration between key sectors such as primary and social care, community organizations, and society, have been advocated, yet their impact remains underexplored.
Objective: This study examines the regional variability in the uptake of a public health strategy in Catalonia that mobilizes community health assets, such as social clubs and leisure activities, through intersectoral collaboration and its associations with social support and mental well-being in older adults.
Underdiagnosis and overdiagnosis commonly occur in Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) patients. We assessed diagnostic accuracy, clinical characteristics, healthcare utilization, and care plan registration for patients undergoing primary care. We conducted a cross-sectional, population-based study using a health record registry from four primary healthcare centers in Catalonia (Spain) for patients aged ≥15 years.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAim: To translate and adapt the Heart Failure-Specific Health Literacy Scale (HFS-HLS) for Castilian Spanish (i.e., the Spanish spoken in Spain) and to evaluate its psychometric properties in patients with heart failure visited in primary care centres.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBJGP Open
July 2025
Background: Monitoring low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) and prescribing appropriate treatment is crucial for secondary prevention in primary care.
Aim: To study LDL-C levels and treatments for patients with ischaemic heart disease according to target recommendations and assess factors influencing prescribed drug intensity.
Design & Setting: A cross-sectional study was undertaken.
Background: In health sciences practice, interpersonal skills, critical thinking, and learning-to-learn are crucial transversal skills. Effective teaching necessitates the understanding of undergraduates' views. This study explored undergraduate experiences in human biology, medicine, and nursing degrees in learning transversal skills.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFOropharyngeal Dysphagia (OD) increases the risk of hospitalization and the use of health services; however, it is often detected and studied in institutionalized patients with limited attention given to the community. The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of OD and its associated factors after conducting a program consisting of a systematic assessment of OD for in patients living independently in their dwellings and requiring home-based care. We conducted a cross-sectional study involving a systematic assessment of disabled and elderly patients enrolled in a home-based primary care program at three urban centers (Barcelona, Spain).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Contextual variables that capture the characteristics of delimited geographic or jurisdictional areas are vital for health and social research. However, obtaining data sets with contextual-level data can be challenging in the absence of monitoring systems or public census data.
Objective: We describe and implement an 8-step method that combines web scraping, text mining, and spatial overlay analysis (WeTMS) to transform extensive text data from government websites into analyzable data sets containing contextual data for jurisdictional areas.
Introduction: Studies on the prevalence of asthma and allergies often lack representation of the pediatric population, and their impact has not been examined using children without these diseases as a reference group. This study aimed to determine the prevalence of asthma and allergies in children under 14 years old in Spain and their impact on health-related quality of life, activities, healthcare utilization, and environmental and household exposure risk factors.
Methods: Data came from a Spanish population-based representative survey of children aged <14 years (N=6297).
Objectives: Studies of the diagnosis of hypertension have emphasized long-term cost-effectiveness analysis, but the patient experience and costs of blood pressure monitoring methods at the diagnosis stage remain unclear. We studied four diagnostic methods: a new 1 h-automated office blood pressure (BP) monitoring, office BP measurement, home BP monitoring, and awake-ambulatory BP monitoring.
Methods: We carried out a comparative effectiveness study of four methods of diagnosing hypertension in 500 participants with a clinical suspicion of hypertension from three primary healthcare (PHC) centers in Barcelona city (Spain).
Int J Environ Res Public Health
October 2022
Primary healthcare services have changed from face-to-face to tele-consults during the two COVID-19 years. We examined trends before and during the COVID-19 pandemic years based on groups of professionals, patient ages, and the associations with the diagnostic registry. We analyzed proportions for both periods, and ratios of the type of consults in 2017-2019 and 2020-2021 were calculated.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBMC Prim Care
May 2022
Background: Cardiac rehabilitation after acute myocardial infarction permits recovery of the heart function and enables secondary prevention programs in which changes in lifestyle habits are crucial. Cardiac rehabilitation often takes place in hospitals without coordination with primary healthcare and is not focused on individual patient preferences and goals, which is the core of the motivational interview. The objective of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of a cardiac rehabilitation program with a motivational interview in patients discharged from hospital after acute myocardial infarction.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjectives: Primary care is well positioned to identify and address loneliness and social isolation in older adults, given its gatekeeper function in many healthcare systems. We aimed to identify and characterise loneliness and social isolation interventions and detect factors influencing implementation in primary care.
Design: Scoping review using the five-step Arksey and O'Malley Framework.
Primary care physicians can play a crucial role by recognising Sjögren's syndrome (SS) in the early stages identifying those patients with the greatest probability of being diagnosed with SS. SS has a very specific epidemiological profile at presentation (female aged 30-50 years), which may aid an early diagnosis. Although the disease may be expressed in many guises, there are three predominant clinical presentations that should be considered as key clues to increased clinical suspicion (multiple symptoms of dryness, asthenia-polyalgia syndrome and systemic organ-specific manifestations).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInt J Environ Res Public Health
November 2021
Studies of the characteristics of informal caregivers and associated factors have focused on care-receiver disease or caregiver social and psychological traits; however, an integral description may provide better understanding of informal caregivers' problems. A multicenter cross-sectional study in primary healthcare centers was performed in Barcelona (Spain). Participants were a random sample of informal caregivers of patients in a home-care program.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAims: The objective of this study was to examine the validity of 1 h automated office blood pressure measurement for the diagnosis of hypertension.
Methods: We included patients requiring a hypertension diagnostic test. Participants underwent ambulatory blood pressure monitoring, 1 h automated office blood pressure measurement, office blood pressure measurement and home blood pressure monitoring.
We assessed the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in Spain on new cases of diseases and conditions commonly seen in primary care. In 2020, there were significant reductions from 2017-2019 in the annual incidences of hypertension (40% reduction), hypercholesterolemia (36%), type 2 diabetes (39%), chronic kidney disease (43%), ischemic heart disease (48%), benign prostatic hypertrophy (38%), osteoporosis (40%), hypothyroidism (46%), chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (50%), alcohol use disorder (46%), benign colon polyps and tumors (42%), and melanomas (45%). Prioritization of COVID-19 care changed the physician-patient relationship to the detriment of face-to-face scheduled visits for chronic disease detection and monitoring, which fell by almost 41%.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPublic Health Nurs
November 2021
Objective: We assessed the prevalence of bullying and cyberbullying in 12-16-year-olds and the association with student self-reports after a police informative talk.
Design: We used a survey to assess the impact of the intervention: 1458 high school students received a police informative talk during the 2018-2019 school year and completed the self-administered EBIP-Q and ECI-Q questionnaires. Perceptions of conduct and bystanders' attitudes were assessed.
Prevalence of chronic diseases and multimorbidity is rising, and it remains unclear what the best strategy is for activating people with chronic conditions in their self-care. We designed a two-group quasi-experimental time series trial to examine the effectiveness of a nurse-led, face-to-face, individually-tailored health coaching (HC) intervention in improving patient activation and secondary outcomes (self-efficacy, quality of life, anxiety and depression symptoms, medication adherence, hospitalization and emergency visits) among primary care users with chronic conditions. A total of 118 people with chronic conditions were recruited through a primary care center and allocated to either the intervention group (IG) (n = 58) or control group (CG) (n = 60).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Instruments to examine patients' communication skills are impractical for daily clinical practice in primary health care, and it is assumed that health care professionals are always aware of the communication and comprehension status of patients.
Objective: To design and examine the psychometric properties of a new questionnaire (AsCkS) to screen patients' risk of low communication and comprehension skills.
Methods: Designing the new questionnaire involved: (i) a content validity study to generate a set of items, (ii) administration of a questionnaire in a sample of patients and (iii) study of the psychometric properties using a Rasch probabilistic model.
Introduction: 24-hour ambulatory blood pressure monitoring (ABPM) is the gold standard diagnostic method for hypertension, but has some shortcomings in clinical practice while clinical settings often lack sufficient devices to accommodate all patients with suspected hypertension. Home blood pressure monitoring (HBPM) and office blood pressure monitoring (OBPM) also have shortcomings, such as the white coat effect or a lack of accuracy. This study aims to study the validity of a new method of diagnosing hypertension consisting of monitoring blood pressure (BP) for 1 hour and comparing it with OBPM and HBPM and examining the sensitivity and specificity of this method compared with 24-hour ABPM.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFChronic heart failure patients require self-care behaviors and active monitoring of signs and symptoms to prevent worsening. Most patients with this condition are attended in primary healthcare centers. This study aimed to evaluate the endorsement of and adherence to self-care behaviors in primary health care patients with chronic heart failure.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEur Geriatr Med
February 2018
Background: Oropharyngeal dysphagia is a geriatric syndrome of high prevalence. It requires screening, diagnosis and specific care to avoid possible complications. The objective of this study is to perform a systematic review of the literature to know what interventions are performed by nursing professionals in the care of adult patients with OD.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAten Primaria
November 2018
Aim: To determine the impact of an educational program to improve the management of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) that contributes to an increase of the quality of life, exercise capacity, level of dyspnoea, and clinical risk.
Design: Intervention study without controls.
Location: Primary Healthcare Centre.