Quality of health care services for diabetic older adults, from the perspective of the actors involved

Abstract

Today the Estelí San Juan de Dios School Hospital has been creating new specialties, such as cardiology, hemodialysis, among others, which has contributed to the elderly diabetic adults to attend to their health problem; Nevertheless being the only center in the North Region, patients from the other departments arrive, making it a Regional Reference Hospital Center, which is why older adults arrive at 6:00 am without breakfast, waiting until 3 hours to be attended, until 9:00 am in which doctors begin to attend. The objective of the study was to assess the quality of health care services for diabetic elderly adults, from the perspective of the actors involved, in the Estelí San Juan de Dios School Hospital, from 2015-2016. A qualitative study was carried out with an action research approach, with a cross - sectional approach. The sample was 10 health professionals and 25 elderly adult diabetic patients. Instruments such as interviews, observation, free listing, documentary analysis were applied. The main results show that the evaluation of the quality of the health care services provided by the San Juan de Dios School Hospital in Estelí, to elderly diabetic adults, related to local conditions and infrastructure, hygiene, as well as the Quality in itself of the services, in the majority they indicated to be very good. However, most agree that there is a lack of quality regarding preferential treatment of older adult diabetics, as well as the lack of a specialized area for care in this social sector. It is hoped that the present study will support future research and may expand aspects related to this topic.

Keywords: Quality of care in health, older adult, diabetes, chronic diseases integral care.