ArticleBMJ open2021
Comparing quality of primary healthcare between public and private providers in China: study protocol of a cross-sectional study using unannounced standardised patients in seven provinces of China.
Article in BMJ open, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 10 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
10 citing papers in PubMed.
- Regional Differences and Dynamic Evolution of High-Quality Medical Resources in China's Private Hospitals from 2017 to 2022.Risk management and healthcare policy · 2026Article
- Brief verbal intervention to address inappropriate prescriptions of chinese patent medicines among western practitioners in primary health care (BRAVERY): a study protocol for an unannounced standardized patient experiment with a factorial design randomized controlled trial in China.BMC complementary medicine and therapies · 2025Article
- Comparing the Quality of Direct-to-Consumer Telemedicine Dominated and Delivered by Public and Private Sector Platforms in China: Standardized Patient Study.Journal of medical Internet research · 2024Article
- Quality in screening and measuring blood pressure in China's primary health care: a national cross-sectional study using unannounced standardized patients.The Lancet regional health. Western Pacific · 2024Article
- The Agreement Between Virtual Patient and Unannounced Standardized Patient Assessments in Evaluating Primary Health Care Quality: Multicenter, Cross-sectional Pilot Study in 7 Provinces of China.Journal of medical Internet research · 2022Article
- Development trend of primary healthcare after health reform in China: a longitudinal observational study.BMJ open · 2022Observational
- Improving Data Surveillance Resilience Beyond COVID-19: Experiences of Primary heAlth Care quAlity Cohort In ChinA (ACACIA) Using Unannounced Standardized Patients.American journal of public health · 2022Article
- Article
- Comparing the Quality of Primary Care between Public and Private Providers in Urban China: A Standardized Patient Study.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2021Article
- Social and Behavioral Determinants of Healthcare-Seeking and Satisfaction Among Rural Adults in Bangladesh: A Propensity Score Analysis.Inquiry : a journal of medical care organization, provision and financingArticle
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
19 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
introductionThe Chinese government has encouraged the development of private sector in delivering healthcare, including primary healthcare (PHC) in the new round of national health reform since 2009. However, the debate about the role of the private sector in achieving universal health coverage continues with poor support from theories and empirical evidence. This study intends to compare the quality of PHC services between the private and public providers in seven provinces in China, using unannounced standardised patients (USPs).
methodsWe are developing and validating 13 USP cases most commonly observed in the PHC setting. Six domains of quality will be assessed by the USP: effectiveness, safety, patient centredness, efficiency, timeliness and equity. The USP will make 2200 visits to 705 public and 521 private PHC institutions across seven provinces, following a multistage clustered sample design. Using each USP-provider encounter as the analytical unit, we will first descriptively compare the raw differences in quality between the private and public providers and then analyse the association of ownership types and quality, using propensity score weighting. ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION: The study was primarily funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (#71974211, #71874116 and # 72074163) and was also supported by the China Medical Board (#16-260, #18-300 and #18-301), and have received ethical approval from Sun Yat-sen University (#2019-024). The validated USP tool and the data collected in this study will be freely available for the public after the primary analysis of the study. TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER: Chinese Clinical Trial Registry: #ChiCTR2000032773.
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.