The management of asthma and COPD in Greece: Current situation and perspective

Abstract

A National Health Care System finally came about in Greece in the early 1980s and there are now 200 Primary Health Care (PHC) centres functioning in rural areas. Today PHC physicians who staff the Health Centres and their rural health posts mainly serve patients, who are living in rural areas. A thesis on the effectiveness of an educational intervention programme has been carried-out over the last few years as the result of the cooperation between the Clinic of Social and Family Medicine with the Lung and Thorax Clinic of the University Hospital Heraklion, Crete. The first results on the assessment of knowledge of bronchial asthma among PHC physicians who are serving the rural population of Crete have recently been published and this contribution reports and highlights some keys issues, including the following:- Bronchial asthma and COPD are frequent health problems, which the primary care physicians meet, in rural Crete.- There is a lack of specific training programmes for the primary care physicians on the management of asthma and COPD and also the guidelines that have been published are not widely used in daily practice.- There is a lack of qualified and educated nursing staff and specific educational and diagnostic equipment on COPD issues. In only a fewHealth Centres is a spirometer available. In conclusion there is a great deal of room for quality improvement as concerning the management of asthma and COPD in the Greek primary care. Specific actions to improve the current situation were undertaken, and a group of GPs and academics was created in order to review and disseminate practical guidelines (www.cgrg.gr). The current Health Care Reform that gives emphasis to the further development of the primary care and general practice is anticipated to invest time and resources to the development of continued medical education programmes and the implementation of quality improvement procedures.