News

Predictores sociodemográficos y clínicos de la adherencia a los antidepresivos en los trastornos depresivos: una revisión sistemática con un metanálisis
 Featured, News

SESCS PUBLICATION: Validation of the PECUNIA reference unit costs templates in Spain: a useful tool for multi-national economic evaluations of health technologies

Lidia García-Pérez, Renata Linertová, Aránzazu Hernández-Yumar, Cristina Valcárcel-Nazco, Jhoner Perdomo Vielma, Pedro Serrano Aguilar, Mencia R Gutiérrez-Colosia, Luis Salvador Carulla, Enrique Fernández-Vega, Susanne Mayer, Judit Simón, Grupo PECUNIA

ABSTRACT

Background:

The PECUNIA Project was funded by the H2020 programme in which 10 partners from six countries participated. The aim was to develop standardized, harmonized and validated methods and tools to calculate costs in different sectors (such as health and social care, education among others), with the purpose of facilitating comparability of economic evaluations of health technologies across European countries. In this paper we report the first validation of the developed reference unit cost templates in Spain.

Methods:

The evaluation of the PECUNIA Reference Unit Cost (RUC) Templates involved usability, transferability and feasibility assessment. Applicability tests were performed to estimate the cost of a selection of 15 resource items by means of the RUC templates in Spain and in four Spanish regions. External validation involved comparison with existing unit costs.

Results:

It was possible to estimate the cost of five services (dental care and general practitioner in the Canary Islands, general practitioner in Spain [tariffs], health-related day care centre and education services provided in a special education school in the Basque Country), car vandalism as an example of potential health-related consequences, and informal care in Spain. The templates were feasible although data completeness depended on the type of data needed to estimate the costs. The templates are transferable across countries although comparability depends on the services available in each jurisdiction.

Conclusions:

The PECUNIA RUC Templates are free and feasible tools to estimate comparable reference unit costs across countries. Although more validation exercises are needed, they seem useful tools to perform robust multi-national economic evaluations and increase the transferability of cost-effectiveness studies of health technologies in Europe. However, they cannot compensate for the lack of data across jurisdictions.

Keywords: Costing; Economic evaluation; Europe; Services; Societal perspective; Spain; Unit costs; Validation.

You can read the full article here.

 News

Beatriz León Salas presents a SESCS study on healthy ageing at ISQOLS 2025 Preguntar a ChatGPT

The researcher from the Health Technology Assessment Service of the Canary Islands Health Service (SESCS), Beatriz León Salas, participated in the 23rd Annual Conference & 30th Anniversary of the International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies (ISQOLS), held in Luxembourg, presenting the poster titled:

“Integrated lifestyle and disease profiles in adults aged 45–65: a strategy to prevent frailty and improve quality of life”.

This work is part of SESCS’s efforts to generate and share scientific evidence aimed at preventing frailty and improving quality of life in the adult population. Participation in this international conference has helped to give visibility to the multidimensional approach being developed in the Canary Islands in the field of public health and active ageing.

SESCS’s presence at ISQOLS 2025 reinforces the team’s commitment to applied research and international cooperation in the study of well-being and health throughout the life course.

 News

Alezandra Torres undertakes a research stay at IDIAP Jordi Gol to explore health inequalities

Knowledge exchange and international collaboration in health

During her stay at IDIAP Jordi Gol (Barcelona), our colleague from the Health Technology Assessment Service of the Canary Islands Health Service (SESCS), Alezandra Torres Castaño, explored innovative methodologies to highlight citizens’ experiences in health.

Key milestones of the stay included:

  • Critical qualitative analysis of the barriers faced by migrant and racialized adolescents in accessing healthcare services.
  • Participation in the Photovoice art exhibition on endometriosis, raising awareness of the emotional and social impact of this condition.
  • Attendance at the conference Racism and Healthcare, organized by the Research Group on Social Determinants of Health and Demographic Change (OPIK), Basque Country.
  • Exploration of the European project L-HEALTH, which aims to identify health inequalities affecting lesbians in primary care services.
  • Establishment of synergies for future collaborative projects between FIISC and IDIAP.

This stay, part of the RICAPPS mobility programme, reinforces SESCS’s commitment to participatory, ethical, and transformative research.

As a closing summary, Alezandra has created a short video highlighting the main learnings and outcomes:
👉 Watch vídeo

Predictores sociodemográficos y clínicos de la adherencia a los antidepresivos en los trastornos depresivos: una revisión sistemática con un metanálisis
 Featured, News

SESCS PUBLICATION: A virtual community of practice to empower patients with recent ischemic heart disease: A randomized controlled trial

Helena Vall-Roqué, Vanesa Ramos-García, Amado Rivero-Santana, Alezandra Torres-Castaño, Patricia Cifuentes, Débora Koatz, Javier García-García, Valeria Pacheco-Huergo, Pau Rello, Anthea Santos-Álvarez, Alba Campillejo García, Sofía Garrido Elustondo, Marcelo Sanmartín, Lilisbeth Perestelo-Pérez, Ana Isabel González-González, Carola Orrego

ABSRACT

Objective

To evaluate the effectiveness of a virtual community of practice (vCoP) in improving the activation of individuals with ischemic heart disease (IHD).

Method

We conducted a randomized controlled trial. A total of 282 patients with IHD from Madrid, Catalonia, and the Canary Islands were randomly allocated to an intervention or a control group. Patients were anonymized and the statistician was blinded to group allocation. The intervention was a multicomponent-tailored vCoP built on the Web 2.0 concept and focused on skills toward patient empowerment. The primary outcome was the Patient Activation Measure score. Secondary outcomes were self-efficacy to manage the disease, adherence to the Mediterranean diet, level of physical activity, depression, anxiety, medication adherence, and health-related quality of life. A linear regression model of mixed effects was carried out to estimate the effect of participating in the vCoP.

Results

Significant differences in adherence to the Mediterranean diet were found favoring the intervention at 6, 12, and 18 months, B = 0.86, 95% confidence interval (CI) [0.36, 1.35]. No significant changes among data collection points were found for the other variables.

Conclusion

Our results suggest that vCoPs can be helpful for improving adherence to the Mediterranean diet in individuals with IHD, but not for improving their activation or quality of life. However, considerable uncertainty remains due to participants’ high dropout rate. Further research is needed to identify the behavioral change mechanisms of such an intervention. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Trial registration: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT03959631

You can read the full article here.

 Other reports

PhD Thesis on Shared Decision-Making in Generalized Anxiety Disorder: Vanesa Ramos, SESCS Researcher

Our colleague Vanesa Ramos García, researcher at the Evaluation Service of the Canary Islands Health Service (SESCS), has recently defended her PhD thesis titled Shared Decision-Making in Generalized Anxiety Disorder.

We would like to congratulate her on this important achievement, the result of her dedication, effort, and commitment to mental health research.

A true source of pride for our entire team! 🎓

 News

Scientific Visit to HECON (Óbuda University): Renata Linertová Advances the BUR-EB Project

Our colleague Renata Linertová, researcher at the Health Technology Assessment Unit of the Canary Islands Health Service (SESCS), is currently undertaking a two-week scientific visit at the Health Economics Research Center (HECON) of Óbuda University (Budapest), as part of the European BUR-EB. project.
On June 26th, she took part in a session focused on epidermolysis bullosa (EB), together with HECON researchers (Márta Péntek, László Gulácsi, Áron Hölgyesi, and Zrubka Zsombor), the representative of the rare disease patient federation (Gábor Pogány), and dermatologist Márta Medvecz, a specialist in EB.
In the photo, she appears alongside all of them during the event.
An excellent representation of SESCS on the international stage!

 News

65th Congress of the Spanish Society of Geriatrics and Gerontology (SEGG) / 28th Congress of the Catalan Society of Geriatrics and Gerontology (SCGiG)

Our fellow researcher from the Canary Islands Health Service Evaluation and Planning Department, Beatriz León Salas,  participated in the 65th Congress of the Spanish Society of Geriatrics and Gerontology (SEGG) / 28th Congress of the Catalan Society of Geriatrics and Gerontology (SCGiG) with two important posters within the PreFRAIL project.
An excellent contribution to the understanding of frailty. 👏👏
https://geriatria2025.com/

 News, Scientific visits

Scientific visit: Ellen Sterzik

Ellen Sterzik holds a degree in Psychology and is a specialist in Third-Generation Contextual Therapies from the Universidad de La Laguna.

What was the purpose of the visit?

A collaboration grant from the Universidad de La Laguna.

Why did you choose SESCS?

My academic tutor introduced me to the service, explaining the work and projects carried out there. I saw it as an opportunity to broaden my knowledge in evaluation and research.

How will you apply, or how might you benefit from, the activities conducted in collaboration with SESCS in your current professional work?

Access to up-to-date reports from GuíaSalud, as well as sharing information about PyDeSalud with family and friends. In addition, the knowledge gained from systematic reviews.

Did this visit meet your expectations?

Absolutely.

Comments or suggestions:

I’ve been very lucky to meet people so willing to help and support at all times. I’ve felt very comfortable since day one. It’s a great team!

Predictores sociodemográficos y clínicos de la adherencia a los antidepresivos en los trastornos depresivos: una revisión sistemática con un metanálisis
 Featured, News

SESCS PUBLICATION : How to present economic evaluations to non-technical audiences? Randomized trials with professionals and the general population

Renata Linertová, Aránzazu Hernández-Yumar, Carmen Guirado-Fuentes, Benjamín Rodríguez-Díaz, Cristina Valcárcel-Nazco, Iñaki Imaz-Iglesia, Montserrat Carmona-Rodríguez, Lidia García-Pérez

ABSTRACT

Background

Cost-effectiveness analyses of health technologies have become a part of the decision-making process in healthcare policies. Nevertheless, economic results are not always presented in comprehensible formats for non-technical audiences, such as the general population, healthcare professionals or decision-makers. The purpose of this study was to observe which formats best convey the key message of an economic evaluation, and which are best received by two different audiences.

Methods

The summary of a hypothetical cost-effectiveness analysis was edited in different formats: infographic, plain language text and video-abstract for the general population; executive summary and policy brief for a specialized population, i.e. clinicians, clinical and non-clinical managers, or methodologists in health-technology assessment. Participants were randomly shown one of the formats, and data on objective and subjective comprehension, and perceived usefulness/acceptability were gathered by means of online questionnaires. Statistical differences between formats within each audience were analysed.

Results

In the general population (N = 324), objective comprehension was statistically significantly better for infographic than for video-abstract (p = 0.005), and for plain text than for video-abstract (p = 0.024). There were no differences in subjective comprehension, but video-abstract was considered statistically significantly more useful to understand the information than plain text (p = 0.011). In the specialized population (N = 100), no statistically significant differences were observed for objective and subjective comprehension, although policy brief was perceived as statistically significantly more useful than executive summary (p = 0.005).

Conclusions

A balance between effectivity of conveying the message and attractivity of the format needs to be sought, to facilitate non-technical audiences’ understanding of economic data and, consequently, perceive decision-making processes as more transparent and legitimate. The infographic and policy brief could be robust ways to present economic data to the general public and specialized audience, respectively.

You can read the full article here.

 

Predictores sociodemográficos y clínicos de la adherencia a los antidepresivos en los trastornos depresivos: una revisión sistemática con un metanálisis
 Featured, News

SESCS PUBLICATION: The three-domain impact framework for characterizing impact of patient involvement in health technology assessment

Verónica López Gousset, Aline Silveira Silva, Anke-Peggy Holtorf, Ana Toledo-Chávarri, Ann Single.

ABSTRACT

Objectives

Evaluating the impact of patient involvement in health technology assessments (HTA) may help improve practices and avoid ineffective activities. Evaluation, however, continues to be infrequent, inconsistent, and often only relates to process quantity or quality. The Patient and Citizen Involvement in HTA Interest Group (PCIG) within Health Technology Assessment International set out to contextualize this impact to support evaluation.

Methods

Given the lack of established methodology to measure impact, the team performed a qualitative analysis of first-hand accounts about perceived changes in HTA due to involvement of patient stakeholders. A questionnaire was developed, piloted, and rolled out to collect personal perspectives from stakeholders with relevant experience. The stories were analyzed in the aggregate to identify themes in the data.

Results

From January 2019 to September 2021, twenty-four responses were collected through PCIG’s network. Responses (including one joint industry-HTA body submission) came from patient representatives (12), HTA bodies (11), and industry representatives (2) from North America (5), South America (3), Europe (13), and Asia Pacific (3). Based on themes commonly reported, a three-domain framework for evaluating impact is proposed: impact on basis of HTA result or recommendation, impact on HTA body, and impact on patient participants. The framework includes components under each domain to support reporting.

Conclusions

Using the Three-Domain Impact Framework may be useful in identifying, evaluating, and communicating the value of patient involvement in HTA. Enhancing and increasing reporting practices may improve transparency and facilitate process improvements for meaningful integration of patient stakeholders into HTA appraisals across jurisdictions.

Keywords

patient involvement; health technology assessment; impact; qualitative evaluation

You can read the full article here.