A qualitative assessment of diabetes care access and disease management in Central America

Development of a Qualitative Data Analysis Codebook for Arterial Hypertension and Type-2-Diabetes Integrated Care Evaluation

Introduction

Non-communicable diseases, such as arterial hypertension (HTN) and type-2 diabetes (T2D), pose a global public health problem. Integrated care with focus on person-centred principles aims to enhance healthcare quality and access. Previous qualitative research has identified facilitators and barriers for scaling-up integrated care, however the lack of standardized terms and measures hinder cross-country comparisons. This paper addresses these gaps by presenting a generic codebook for qualitative research on integrated care implementation for HTN and T2D.

Description

The codebook serves as a tool for deductive or deductive-inductive qualitative analysis, organizing concepts and themes from qualitative data. It consists of nine first level and 39 second level themes. First level codes cover core issues; and second level codes provide detailed insights into facilitators and barriers.

Discussion

This codebook is more widely applicable than previously developed tools because it includes a broader scope of stakeholders across micro, meso, and macro levels, and the themes being derived from highly diverse health systems across high- and low-income countries.

Conclusion

The codebook is a useful tool for implementation research on integrated care for HTN and T2D at global scale. It facilitates cross-country learning, contributing to improved implementation, scale-up and outcomes.