Effective Universal Coverage of Diabetes Mellitus Type 2 in Chile.
Sara Guerrero-Núñez, Sandra Valenzuela-Suazo, Patricia Cid-Henríquez
PMID 28403339WHAT IT FOUND
Chilean regional data showed low effective coverage for diabetes.
Higher nurse participation in cardiovascular care tracked higher coverage, while higher coverage also tracked higher diabetes mortality.
Key findings
01Across 15 Chilean regions, mean Effective Universal Coverage of Diabetes Mellitus Type 2 was 17.80%, with values from 10.81% to 21.72%.
02Effective Universal Coverage was positively correlated with Percentage of nurses participating in the Cardiovascular Health Program (r = 0.642, P = 0.010).
03Effective Universal Coverage was also positively correlated with Mortality Rate for Diabetes Mellitus (r = 0.591, P = 0.020).
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
The study is ecological, so regional relationships may not hold for individual patients. It analysed only 15 regional units, so other regional differences could explain the correlations. It used aggregate official statistics and did not collect patient-level care data. The nurse variable was only the percentage of nurses participating in the Cardiovascular Health Program, not what nurses did or how well. Official statistics for 2014 and 2015 were not available. The paper did not test whether increasing nurse participation improves diabetes control.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that adding nurses to the Cardiovascular Health Program improves effective diabetes coverage or lowers mortality. The study is ecological, uses 15 regions, and only reports regional relationships; the nurse participation finding does not show a causal effect.