Association between Health-Related Quality of Life and Access to Chronic Disease Management by Primary Care Facilities in Mainland China: A Cross-Sectional Study

Abstract

The integration of chronic disease management (CDM) services into the essential public health services offered by primary care facilities has been a major strategy in China’s healthcare reform since 2009. We aimed to measure the percentage of patients with chronic diseases in China who believed that they could easily obtain CDM services at a nearby primary care facility in mainland China and determine its association with the EQ visual analog scale (EQ-VAS) score and the utility index of the 5-level EQ-5D version (EQ-5D-5L). A cross-sectional survey was conducted nationwide between 20 June 2022 and 31 August 2022, involving 5525 patients with chronic diseases from 32 provincial-level administrative divisions, of which 48.1% (n = 2659) were female with a median age of 55.0 years. The median EQ-VAS score was 73.0 and the utility index of the EQ-5D-5L was 0.942. A majority of patients reported definite (24.3%) or mostly (45.9%) easy access to CDM services from nearby primary care facilities. Multivariable logistic regression analysis revealed that easy access to CDM services in primary care facilities was positively associated with higher HRQoL. Our findings indicate that, as of 2022, approximately 70% of patients with chronic diseases in mainland China had easy access to CDM services provided by primary care facilities, which was significantly and positively associated with their health status.