Ramos, Alex
Pujol, Ramon
Palma, Carol
Article History
Received: 6 February 2024
Accepted: 5 July 2024
First Online: 14 July 2024
Declarations
:
: The Nebrija University of Madrid endorses and supports the publication of this manuscript, with the waiver of ethics approval and informed consent as it is an educational intervention with its respective evaluation. An educational intervention or a programme to primary care physicians to learn how to manage frequent patient attendance does not require an application for ethics approval to an Ethics Committee. In addition, it has been the doctors themselves through their Primary Care Centres who have requested it, so informed consent is implicit as they are the applicants for the training themselves. It was also not necessary to request an Ethics approval for the evaluation of the educational intervention as no personal data of the patients were used. The attendance rates of patients were obtained from the usual aggregate data in the ordinary activity of the centres and not generated specifically for the study. These aggregated data is presented in an anonymized form. The request consisted of a training activity for primary care physicians in order to learn how to manage the frequent attendance of patients in the offices of the Primary Care Centres. These doctors participate voluntarily, and they were previously aware of the teaching objectives of the training. Once the training was completed, as researchers we only had to check the effects of such training of doctors on patient attendance rates, evaluating before and after training and comparing with a control group.
: Regarding the ethical implications of the study, it should be noted that the researchers guaranteed compliance with both the basic ethical principles of research and with the general ethical rules that are inherent in the medical profession. The methodology ensured that the rights of the participating patients were always respected, and that data were confidential. Additionally, the study complied with the provisions of the European Union General Data Protection Regulation, as well as Spanish Organic Law on the protection of personal data and the guarantee of digital rights. The study complies with the basic ethical principle of beneficence in that the participating physicians were trained with an eye toward the possible improvement in their care of their patients and a decrease in frequent attendance. The compliance with principle of nonmaleficence was ensured in that a voluntary training program for physicians cannot be said to cause harm to their patients. Finally, the study complies with the principle of justice in that equal treatment was given to all the members of the sample and there was no discrimination by reason of race, gender, age, socioeconomic status, or any other factor.
: Not applicable.
: The authors declare no competing interests.