ArticleBMC family practice2020
Primary care in the time of COVID-19: monitoring the effect of the pandemic and the lockdown measures on 34 quality of care indicators calculated for 288 primary care practices covering about 6 million people in Catalonia.
Article in BMC family practice, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It is linked to trial NCT05439915 (Pilot Study of Asthma Diagnosis Through Peak Flows), which is not on this map. Cited by 77 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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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.
Pilot Study of Asthma Diagnosis Through Peak Flows
Who cites it
77 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 151 citations in OpenAlex.
- Pooled it
- Telehealth at scale can improve chronic disease management in the community during a pandemic: An experience at the time of COVID-19.PloS one · 2021Trial
- Exploring the Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Patients with Type 2 Diabetes and Primary Care Utilisation: A Scoping Review.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Financial incentives and information provision for post-pandemic primary care quality recovery: a longitudinal study in Catalonia.The British journal of general practice : the journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners · 2026Article
- [Barriers and facilitators to accessing healthcare during the pandemic: an assessment of healthcare managers and professionals].Atencion primaria · 2026Article
- Identifying essential COVID-19 indicators for primary healthcare through Delphi analysis in 31 European countries: Eurodata eDelphi study.European journal of public health · 2025Article
- Article
- Direct and indirect burden of COVID-19 on mortality in Spain (2020 to 2022).BMC public health · 2025Article
- How Austrian primary care physicians evaluated their available resources and quality of care during the first year of COVID-19: a repeated cross-sectional survey study.BMC primary care · 2025Article
- The effect of Covid-19 pandemic on the primary health care utilization and cost: an interrupted time series analysis.Cost effectiveness and resource allocation : C/E · 2025Article
- Impact of COVID-19 on Primary Healthcare Research: Trends and Suggestions for Better Services Approaches Via Blockchain Based Applications.Blockchain in healthcare today · 2025Article
- Article
- Information provision and financial incentives in Catalonia's public primary care (2010-2019): an interrupted time series analysis.The Lancet regional health. Europe · 2024Article
- The Use of COVID-19 Mobile Apps in Connecting Patients with Primary Healthcare in 30 Countries: Eurodata Study.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Impacts of COVID-19 on clinical indicators and mortality in patients with chronic conditions in Catalonia, Spain: A retrospective population-based cohort study.Journal of global health · 2024Observational
- Primary care indicators for disease burden, monitoring and surveillance of COVID-19 in 31 European countries: Eurodata Study.European journal of public health · 2024Article
- Factors disrupting the continuity of care for patients with chronic disease during the pandemics: A systematic review.Health science reports · 2024Article
- Health Outcomes for Older Patients with Chronic Diseases During the First Pandemic Year.Clinical interventions in aging · 2024Observational
- The safety of patient management in family medicine in Slovenia during Covid-19: a cross-sectional study.BMC primary care · 2023Article
- The effects of COVID-19 event strength on job burnout among primary medical staff.BMC health services research · 2023Article
17 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
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Authors and funding
16 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundTo analyse the impact of the COVID-19 epidemic and the lockdown measures on the follow-up and control of chronic diseases in primary care.
methodsRetrospective study in 288 primary care practices (PCP) of the Catalan Institute of Health. We analysed the results of 34 indicators of the Healthcare quality standard (EQA), comprising different types: treatment (4), follow-up (5), control (10), screening (7), vaccinations (4) and quaternary prevention (4). For each PCP, we calculated each indicator's percentage of change in February, March and April 2020 respective to the results of the previous month; and used the T-Student test for paired data to compare them with the percentage of change in the same month of the previous year. We defined indicators with a negative effect those with a greater negative change or a lesser positive change in 2020 in comparison to 2019; and indicators with a positive effect those with a greater positive change or a lesser negative change.
resultsWe observed a negative effect on 85% of the EQA indicators in March and 68% in April. 90% of the control indicators had a negative effect, highlighting the control of LDL cholesterol with a reduction of - 2.69% (95%CI - 3.17% to - 2.23%) in March and - 3.41% (95%CI - 3.82% to - 3.01%) in April; and the control of blood pressure with a reduction of - 2.13% (95%CI - 2.34% to - 1.9%) and - 2.59% (95%CI - 2.8% to - 2.37%). The indicators with the greatest negative effect were those of screening, such as the indicator of diabetic foot screening with a negative effect of - 2.86% (95%CI - 3.33% to - 2.39%) and - 4.13% (95%CI - 4.55% to - 3.71%) in March and April, respectively. Only one vaccination indicator, adult Measles-Mumps-Rubella vaccine, had a negative effect in both months. Finally, among the indicators of quaternary prevention, we observed negative effects in March and April although in that case a lower inadequacy that means better clinical outcome.
conclusionsThe COVID-19 epidemic and the lockdown measures have significantly reduced the results of the follow-up, control, screening and vaccination indicators for patients in primary care. On the other hand, the indicators for quaternary prevention have been strengthened and their results have improved.
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