Assessment of the Quality of Delivered Care for Iranian patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis by Using Comprehensive Quality Measurement Model in Health Care (CQMH)

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.