Manejo asistencial del paciente con hiperplasia benigna de próstata en Espa？a

objectives: to identify clinical management of benign prostatic hyperplasia (bph) in spain and its associated health care resources. material and methods: a qualitative cross-sectional study was conducted through telephone interviews to general practitioners (gp) and urologists. information about diagnosis, pharmacologic treatment and follow-up was collected. results were clustered according to the key variables considered as drivers of clinical practice patterns: bph diagnosis, severity classification, treatment initiation and follow up of patients. results: 153 gp and 154 urologists participated in the study. 7 different clinical patterns were identified in primary care (pc). resource use during diagnosis is relatively homogeneous, reporting a range of 2.0 to 2.6 visits employed and being the most frequent test performed psa and urine test. follow-up is heterogeneous; frequency of follow-up visits oscillates from 3.2 to 7.0 visits/patient/year and type of tests performed is different among patterns and within the same pattern. in urology, 3 clinical patterns were identified. resource use is homogeneous in the diagnosis and in the follow-up; urologists employed 2 visits in diagnosis and a range of 2.1 to 3.2 visits/patient/year in the follow-up. the most frequent tests both in diagnosis and follow-up are psa and digital test. conclusions: bph management shows variability in pc, identifying 7 different clinical practice patterns with different resource use during the follow-up among patterns and within the same pattern. the implementation of clinical guidelines could be justified to reduce heterogeneity.