ArticleHuman resources for health2017
The effects of austerity measures on quality of healthcare services: a national survey of physicians in the public and private sectors in Portugal.
Article in Human resources for health, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
3 citing papers in PubMed.
- Navigating the social and healthcare sector: experiences and perspectives of ethnic minority family members/designated care givers of individuals with developmental disorders within the social and healthcare systems.International journal of developmental disabilities · 2026Article
- Optimizing engagement of undergraduate students in medical education research: The eMERG training network.Annals of medicine and surgery (2012) · 2018Article
- Withstanding austerity: Equity in health services utilisation in the first stage of the economic recession in Southern Spain.PloS one · 2018Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundThe European Union member countries reacted differently to the 2008 economic and financial crisis. However, few countries have monitored the outcomes of their policy responses, and there is therefore little evidence as to whether or not savings undermined the performance of health systems. We discuss the situation in Portugal, where a financial adjustment program was implemented between 2011 and 2014, and explore the views of health workers on the effects of austerity measures on quality of care delivery.
methodsA nationwide survey of physicians' experiences was conducted in 2013-2014 (n = 3442). We used a two-step model to compare public and private services and look at the possible moderating effects of the physicians' specialty and years of practice. Our data analysis included descriptive statistics, the independent t test, analysis of variance (ANOVA), multivariate logistic regression, General Linear Model Univariate Analysis, non-parametric methods (bootstrap), and post hoc probing.
resultsMainly in the public sector, the policy goal of maintaining quality of care was undermined by a lack of resources, the deterioration in medical residency conditions, and to a lesser extent, greater administrative interference in clinical decision-making. Differences in public and private services showed that the effects of the austerity measures were not the same throughout the health system. Our results also showed that physicians with similar years of practice and in the same medical specialty did not necessarily experience the same pressures.
conclusionsThe debate on the effects of austerity measures should focus more closely on health workers' concrete experiences, as they demonstrate the non-linearity between policy setting and expected outcomes. We also suggest that it is necessary to explore the interplay between lower quality and the undermining of trust relationships in health.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.