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Implementation of the World Health Organization Age-Friendly Principles: A Case Study from Portugal

Demographic ageing has emphasized the need to adapt current healthcare systems to the comorbidity profile of older adults. In 2004, the World Health Organization (WHO) developed the Age-Friendly Principles, but the approach to their implementation in the health systems still remains uncertain. This...

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Autores principales: Tavares, Jéssica, Santinha, Gonçalo, Rocha, Nelson Pacheco
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10419270/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37569072
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20156532
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author Tavares, Jéssica
Santinha, Gonçalo
Rocha, Nelson Pacheco
author_facet Tavares, Jéssica
Santinha, Gonçalo
Rocha, Nelson Pacheco
author_sort Tavares, Jéssica
collection PubMed
description Demographic ageing has emphasized the need to adapt current healthcare systems to the comorbidity profile of older adults. In 2004, the World Health Organization (WHO) developed the Age-Friendly Principles, but the approach to their implementation in the health systems still remains uncertain. This article intends to address this gap by assessing how the Principles are perceived and implemented in the Portuguese National Health Service (NHS), where this topic has recently been placed on the political agenda. A questionnaire survey was administered to primary care directors and hospital administrators, covering a total of 173 health units. Findings show that most respondents are unaware of the WHO Principles (71%) and do not identify the current organizational structure of care as a problem for the provision of care (80%). However, the implementation of the WHO Principles is lower than desired, especially regarding professional training and the management system (50% and 28% of the criteria are implemented, respectively). These criteria defined by the WHO are implemented in a reduced number of health units, as opposed to the physical environment where implementation is more widespread (64%). Accordingly, further dissemination and implementation support in the national territory are needed in order to improve the health outcomes of older adults and increase the performance of health units.
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spelling pubmed-104192702023-08-12 Implementation of the World Health Organization Age-Friendly Principles: A Case Study from Portugal Tavares, Jéssica Santinha, Gonçalo Rocha, Nelson Pacheco Int J Environ Res Public Health Article Demographic ageing has emphasized the need to adapt current healthcare systems to the comorbidity profile of older adults. In 2004, the World Health Organization (WHO) developed the Age-Friendly Principles, but the approach to their implementation in the health systems still remains uncertain. This article intends to address this gap by assessing how the Principles are perceived and implemented in the Portuguese National Health Service (NHS), where this topic has recently been placed on the political agenda. A questionnaire survey was administered to primary care directors and hospital administrators, covering a total of 173 health units. Findings show that most respondents are unaware of the WHO Principles (71%) and do not identify the current organizational structure of care as a problem for the provision of care (80%). However, the implementation of the WHO Principles is lower than desired, especially regarding professional training and the management system (50% and 28% of the criteria are implemented, respectively). These criteria defined by the WHO are implemented in a reduced number of health units, as opposed to the physical environment where implementation is more widespread (64%). Accordingly, further dissemination and implementation support in the national territory are needed in order to improve the health outcomes of older adults and increase the performance of health units. MDPI 2023-08-05 /pmc/articles/PMC10419270/ /pubmed/37569072 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20156532 Text en © 2023 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Tavares, Jéssica
Santinha, Gonçalo
Rocha, Nelson Pacheco
Implementation of the World Health Organization Age-Friendly Principles: A Case Study from Portugal
title Implementation of the World Health Organization Age-Friendly Principles: A Case Study from Portugal
title_full Implementation of the World Health Organization Age-Friendly Principles: A Case Study from Portugal
title_fullStr Implementation of the World Health Organization Age-Friendly Principles: A Case Study from Portugal
title_full_unstemmed Implementation of the World Health Organization Age-Friendly Principles: A Case Study from Portugal
title_short Implementation of the World Health Organization Age-Friendly Principles: A Case Study from Portugal
title_sort implementation of the world health organization age-friendly principles: a case study from portugal
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10419270/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37569072
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20156532
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