Abstract
PURPOSE: Diabetes care is one of the major healthcare problems . This study aimed to introduce a recently-developed Quality of Care Index (QCI) for type 2 diabetes and utilized it to compare different genders, age groups, and Iranian provinces. METHODS: From the Global Burden of Disease 1990-2019 database, we obtained primary epidemiologic measures and combined them to build four secondary indices, all indicating the quality of care provided to patients. We utilized the principal component analysis (PCA) method to calculate the substantial component named QCI (with a scale of 0-100). Gender inequality was shown by the gender disparity ratio (GDR), defining female to male QCI. RESULTS: National QCI ranged from 43.0 in 1990 to 38.6 in 2019. By excluding the more frequent outlier province; Tehran as the Capital of Iran, the QCI score reached 50.27 in 2019. The GDR decreased from 1.04 to 0.95. QCI indicated rather more favorable conditions in Iranian provinces with a higher socio-demographic index (SDI). Conversely, provinces with a lower SDI had worse QCI. In 2019, Tehran, the capital of Iran, with the highest (58.5), and South Khorasan with the lowest QCIs (0.4) were the two Iranian provinces' extremes. Moreover, the elderly QCI improved in 2019. CONCLUSION: During 1990-2019, there are remarkable disparities between Iran's provinces, genders and age groups. The equitable and widespread provision of facilities should be considered along with the decentralization of healthcare resources. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s40200-022-01108-x.