[Accesibility and use of spirometry in primary care centers in Catalonia].

Objective: Examine the accessibility and use of forced spirometry (FS) in public primary care facilities centers in Catalonia.

Design: Cross-sectional study using a survey.

Participants: Three hundred sixty-six Primary Care Teams (PCT) in Catalonia. Third quarter of 2010.

Measurements: Survey with information on spirometers, training, interpretation and quality control, and the priority that the quality of spirometry had for the team. Indicators FS/100 inhabitants/year, FS/month/PCT; FS/month/10,000 inhabitants.

Main Results: Response rate: 75%. 97.5% of PCT had spirometer and made an average of 2.01 spirometries/100 inhabitants (34.68 spirometry/PCT/month). 83% have trained professionals.>50% centers perform formal training but no information is available on the quality. 70% performed some sort of calibration. Interpretation was made by the family physician in 87.3% of cases. In 68% of cases not performed any quality control of exploration. 2/3 typed data manually into the computerized medical record.>50% recognized a high priority strategies for improving the quality.

Conclusion: Despite the accessibility of EF efforts should be made to standardize training, increasing the number of scans test and promote systematic quality control.