AOTMiT reimbursement recommendations compared to other HTA agencies.

Our objective was to compare AOTMiT (Polish: Agencja Oceny Technologii Medycznych i Taryfikacji) recommendations to other HTA (Health Technology Assessment) agencies for newly registered drugs and new registration indications issued by the European Medicines Agency between 2014 and 2019. The study aims to assess the consistency and justifications of AOTMiT recommendations compared to that of other HTA agencies in 11 countries. A total of 2496 reimbursement recommendations published by 12 HTA agencies for 464 medicinal products and 525 indications were analyzed. Our analysis confirmed that the Polish AOTMiT agency seems to bear the closest resemblance to the corresponding HTA agencies from Canada (CADTH) and New Zealand (PHARMAC), when it comes to the outcome of HTA recommendations (positive or negative). Poland had a general scheme for justifying recommendations, similar to that of Ireland-four aspects (i.e., clinical efficacy, safety profile, cost-effectiveness, and impact on the payer's budget) are important for Poland when formulating the final decision. Compared to other countries, Poland shows a noticeably different pattern of justifying reimbursement recommendations, as revealed primarily in terms of budget impact and somewhat less so for cost-effectiveness rationales.

Assessment of health promotion among grammar school students.

The study was performed among 158 students from the third and fourth grades of grammar school in Lublin. The study method was a questionnaire including 41 questions grouped under 13 subjects. In the light of the data it may be concluded that students evaluate their health condition as satisfactory (82% of respondents). Most of the examined students--73.41% declare incorrect nutrition, lack of physical activity--52.53%, chronic fatigue--69.62%. Acceptable answers were obtained on questions concerning prevention of circulatory system diseases, AIDS, prevention of faulty posture, idea of "disease". Respondents did not know the rules of correct nutrition, 87.34% admitted drinking alcohol (27.84% every week, 5.69% every day). Students knew little about adverse effects of smoking, more than a half (51.26%) smoked cigarettes. 34.1% declared taking psychoactive substances. The results indicate that the mass media are the most popular source of information on health and healthy living. Results show that there is a strong need to create a new form of teaching (preferably at school) young people how to live their lives in a healthy way.