Abstract
To analyze the attitudes of Spanish citizens towards the criteria that should be used as a guide to make decisions regarding the prioritization of patients, namely, medical, economic and person-based criteria. An online self-administered questionnaire was used to collect data from a sample of 546 Spanish respondents. The questionnaire was made up of three questions. In the first two questions respondents faced a hypothetical rationing dilemma involving four patients (differentiated by personal characteristics and health conditions) where they were asked to: (i) choose only one patient to be treated and (ii) rank the patients' assistance priority order. As for the third question, respondents were asked to state their level of agreement with 14 healthcare rationing criteria through a five-point Likert scale. Descriptive statistics, factor analysis and multinomial regressions were used. Findings suggest that Spanish respondents support a plurality of views on the rationing principles on which healthcare micro allocation decisions should be based. Despite the fact respondents support the idea that all patients should receive healthcare assistance equally, they also consider the age of the patient, as well as economic factors when establishing assistance priories among patients. If it is not possible to provide health care assistance and treatments to all people, then age and economic factors should guide healthcare priority setting.
Highlights
The aim of this study is to explore the preferences of Spanish citizens regarding the criteria on which healthcare rationing decisions at the micro–level should be based
Respondents were asked to act as decision makers and indicate: (i) among the four patients who should be treated if there were enough resources to treat them all, and (ii) what should be the order of health care assistance or treatment provision in the case there are not enough resources to provide treatment to all the patients at the same time
These results revealed that Spanish respondents seem to support all the criteria that have been discussed in the available literature in this regard
Summary
The first two questions addressed a hypothetical rationing exercise designed elsewhere [20]. The third question was composed of 14 statements, designed elsewhere [13], related to the criteria that should be considered in order to define treatment provision priorities between patients. In this case, respondents were asked to express their level of REVISTA DE SALUD PÚBLICA · Volumen 20 [5], octubre 2018 agreement with each statement through a five-point Likert scale (1=“strongly disagree” and 5=“strongly agree”)
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