Abstract
Introduction: Quality of
care has become increasingly critical in the evaluation of healthcare and
healthcare services. The aim of this study was to assess quality of delivered
care among patients with rheumatoid arthritis using a model of Comprehensive
Quality Measurement in Health Care (CQMH).
Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted on 172
patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) who were received care from private
clinics of Isfahan University of medical sciences in 2013. CQMH questionnaires
were used for assessing the quality of care. Data were analyzed using SPSS for
Windows.
Results: The mean scores of Quality Index, Service
Quality (SQ), Technical Quality (TQ), and Costumer Quality (CQ)
were 72.70, 79.09, 68.54 and 70.25 out of 100, respectively. For CQ only 19.8% of
participations staying the course of action even under stress and financial
constraints, there is a significant gap between what RA care they received with
what was recommended in the guideline for TQ. Scores of service quality was low
in majority of aspects especially in "availability of support group"
section.
Conclusion: Study shows paradoxical findings and expresses
that quality scores of service delivery for patients with arthritis rheumatoid
from patient's perspective is relatively low. Therefore, for fixing this
paradoxical problem, improving the participation of patients and their family
and empowering them for self-management and decision should be regarded by
health systems.